


I (don't) know you, I (just) walked with you once upon a dream

by aprilclash, baeconandeggs



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-26
Updated: 2016-05-26
Packaged: 2018-07-10 09:35:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6977962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aprilclash/pseuds/aprilclash, https://archiveofourown.org/users/baeconandeggs/pseuds/baeconandeggs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Baekhyun lives a boring life in a boring, little city and dreams of sandstorms, golden palaces at the end of the desert and a crimson dragon who doesn’t want to marry him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I (don't) know you, I (just) walked with you once upon a dream

_~_  
I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream  
I know you, that look in your eyes is so familiar a gleam  
And I know it's true that visions are seldom all they seem  
But if I know you, I know what you'll do  
You'll love me at once, the way you did once upon a dream  
~ 

**~~~ Prologue ~~~ **

**Fallen City of Oroun, Empire**

The dragons emerge from the mist like grim omens of the death. The Crown Prince can only see three of them, but the fog descending from the sky on the hills like a silent avalanche could be hiding an entire herd in its ephemeral, wet embrace.

Two small green dragons, he counts in his head; they’re the most common kind, fast and agile. Their leader flies above them, big and sleek, pitch, solid black against the ochre clouds. His name spills from the Prince’s lips like a curse.

“Zitao.”

The prince can identify his former fiancé from the golden chains around his neck and legs, Zitao's little fault of vanity. They twinkle eerily in the pale, faint light of the afternoon when the black dragon turns his head down with a nervous twitch and scans the land for signs of his prey. The prince crouches on the ground, feeling the hard, pointy rocks bite at his skin even through the thick travel clothes he’s wearing. He doesn’t dare to move, not when he knows they’re looking for him. His only shield against their eyes is the camouflage cape he’s wearing - grey, like the color of dust, ashes, and the dry ground of the canyon, red like the fading light of the dying sun on a dying day.

The prince winces. It's late. When did it get so late? The sun will be gone soon and with it the prince’s only advantage. In their true form - their beast form - dragons are strong, fast and lethal, but they’re still weak against daylight. Even a dying sun like this one can stop them for a few hours, blinding their eyes, making them vulnerable. But as soon as the tiny, red globe of fire sets beyond the horizon, their keen eyes will become the prince’s most dangerous enemy.

The dragons disappear again, swallowed by the clouds, and the prince hesitates for a moment, wondering if it’s safe to dash away. He knows that, if he stays still, they’ll see him for sure when they come back. There are no safe hiding spots in his surroundings, only naked land, broken and splintered and dry. The end of the canyon is close, however. Beyond that, under a quagmire of dust, sand and ashes, lie the ruins of Oroun.

The prince has never been there – it was destroyed before he got the chance to visit it – but he knows this city from the tales Leviathan told him and his brother when they were younger, and from a couple of drawings in old books. Oroun, built at the end of the desert, where the red gold of sand blended into the white gold of wheat, endless fields shining under the glowing sun. A city of farmers, writers, beautiful women, and strong, stubborn men who carried and used carved daggers with incredible elegance. Now Oroun is a graveyard of abandoned buildings consumed by the desert, but it’s also the perfect place to hide from three dragons.

Just as the prince wonders where they are, the dragons appear again. The small, green ones check the walls of the canyon while Zitao glides, surfing the waves of fog and smoke to finally land on the ground. The creatures call each other, screeching orders or information in their high, piercing language. The prince knows they're looking for him. He takes a look around, calculating his possibilities to sneak away before they find him.

That’s when the black dragon throws his triangular head back until he’s looking up at the sky and vomits a pillar of fire and flames from his jaws. The fire rises and rises, climbing beyond the clouds and disappearing in the thick blanket of fog wrapped tight around the canyon, its flames so hot they turn the humid mist into hot vapor, burning it away. 

It's a signal.

The prince feels his heart fall. He had hoped the three dragons hadn’t noticed him. He had hoped they would just pass the canyon and look for him on the other side, towards the desert of Sanil. But, even if they couldn’t see him, they must have smelled him. And they’re calling for backup.

After a few excruciating moments, the reply comes. From the other side of the canyon – to the prince’s dismay, closer than he would have hoped – another column of fire answers the call. The air is so dirty and thick with filth and poison that every sense of depth is lost, drowned in a greyish fog. The prince can barely see beyond the end of the canyon, but he sees this fire as if the sky was clear. It’s bright and destructive, shining in the distance even through the smoke.

There are only two dragons who can display such an impressing power, the King of the Crimson Mountain and his right-hand man, the Sentinel, and the prince knows he has no chances against either of them. He’s just a human, alone against monsters. He would definitely be able to take care of the two green dragons, but even Zitao alone would be too strong of an opponent for him. He can’t waste another moment.

He takes a deep breath through the mask he’s wearing, glad for the filters that keep the air he breathes clean - smelly and hot and scratchy against his throat, but clean from the soft powders floating in the atmosphere. With his muscles already tense, like a runner on the starting line, he dares to peek at the black dragon. Zitao still hasn’t noticed him, but if the prince decides to run, the dragon will detect the movement, even in the dim light. His eyesight is bad, but not _that_ bad.

The prince weighs his options.

The last time the king of the dragons left the Emperor's side was eight years ago, so the possibilities of meeting him now are quite low. It's a good thing, because the tales of his cruelty, of the destruction he brought upon the Valley of Sanil, populated the prince's childhood nightmares for years.

As for the Sentinel, the times he's left the court can be counted on the fingers of the prince's left hand. The prince has never seen him, but of course he's heard the rumors. Kris, the Sentinel, is said to be as big as he is cruel and as powerful as he is arrogant. If Kris catches him, death would be the best option. In the worst case, Kris wouldn’t kill the prince, but use him to find Baekhyun. Then everything - the efforts of the last ten years - would be lost forever.

It's settled. The prince would rather face Zitao than the King or the Sentinel. He waits until the black dragon looks towards the sky again, hissing something to his two companions, before he dashes. His legs struggle to get in the right position, to remember how to move again after the long minutes spent crouching on the ground, but once he starts running, he runs fast. He runs to save his life.

The dragons immediately notice him and a chorus of snarls fills the air, but the prince doesn’t falter. His footsteps echo in the canyon, bouncing on the stone walls only to be lost in the terrible cries of the dragons. Every step lifts a thin layer of ash, light and impalpable like flour, not white but dirty gray. The prince can feel it sneaking under the mask and in his nose, inside his lungs. He coughs and pants but he doesn’t stop. The end of the canyon is close.

He leaps out of the canyon, half-running, half-crouching on the ground. His travel clothes, so effective against the terrible temperature drops during the night, only weigh him down in this race. He can feel the dragons getting closer to him with every step he takes, but it’s with relief that he sags in the sand of the desert and leaves the naked stone behind.

He crawls, fighting the pull of the sand. He can already see the remnants of the city, short buildings with tiny windows to keep the sandstorms out, rivers of sand that were once streets before the hand of the desert reached them, burying the gardens, the main courtyards, the crowded markets. Oroun has a neat map, all straight, parallel streets intersecting to create countless crossroads. The prince runs with everything he has towards the center of the city, with fear whistling in his ears and the rhythmic flaps of dragon wings chasing him from above, closer and closer.

Finally, he finds what he was looking for: a hole in the ground, wide and black, like a mouth ready to devour everything. It used to be a well a long time ago, before the sun dimmed to a rusty colored pinhead on a dark, thunderous sky, before the dragons came down from the Crimson Mountain and let their fire fall over the country like a curse, before the earth withered and the people withered with it, or hardened to the point of becoming heartless in order to survive. This well has withered too. It’s nothing more than a hole now, empty and dry, but a hole too small to fit the large body and wide wings of a dragon. Maybe, the prince thinks, the well is also connected to a tunnel that used to be an underground river. It could lead him to safety.

He runs as the roads narrow, turning into little alleys that help him gain a few precious seconds on the black dragon, too big to fit in these cramped streets. He never stops, even if his lungs are collapsing and the air moved by the immense, strong wings of the black dragon threatens to send him flying.

He keeps his eyes on the grotesque, open mouth of the well, polished by twenty years of wind and sand. He makes a last dash towards it, but the black dragon lands right over the edge, sealing the well close with his body. The prince curbs right before he crashes against the dragon’s thick leg, adorned in gold and platinum. Zitao’s jaws snap, alarmingly close to his wrist, but the prince is quick to duck and run away from the dragon. He backs against a wall to reduce the chances of the green dragons sneaking up on him from behind.

There, panting, heart beating like a war drum, he stops, hesitates for a moment, torn between running away towards the next closest well or trying to hold his ground and fight. But the next closest well is too far away and both he and the black dragon know it.  
He unlocks the crossbow strapped to his left arm and unsheathes the sword, holding it in his right hand. A thin thread of smoke rises from Zitao’s nostrils and his belly flares up, fire shining in his throat as he gets ready to pitch a stream of fire against the prince.

His voice, when it echoes in the prince’s mind, is cavernous, scornful and terribly young. Zitao is not older than the prince. He belongs to a new generation of dragons born in a world of war and blood, a world where his kind has always towered over humans as monsters and not stood next to them as allies and friends. The black dragon is the son of the darkness and the poison that pollutes the air, just like the prince is. But the prince knows that this is not everything that there ever was, he knows how things were before. The black dragon doesn’t know anything.

“Surrender, human, and you shall live.”

The sword is heavy in the prince’s hands, but Leviathan’s voice is strong in his mind. _Grip your sword below the guard. Make sure that the pommel is above your bellybutton. Remember about your legs, never keep them still. Be like a dancer, always moving. Watch your enemies closely, react to the way their body moves._

“If you want me,” he says, instilling in his voice a self-confidence he doesn’t possess, “you must come and get me!”

The black dragon doesn’t give him time to breathe or attack before he vomits an inferno of fire on him. The boy ducks and rolls on the ground, feeling the flames burn the hair at the back of his neck. His clothes, cut and sewed from the skin of the dragons he has killed, don’t burn, but the fire wraps itself around him, sneaking in every hole of the thick armor to lick at his skin with its heat. He ignores the burning pain and quickly grabs an arrow from the quiver strapped to his thigh. He doesn’t regret not bringing a heavier sword- he’s always been better with a bow than with a blade. The crossbow snaps under his fingers and the dragon doesn’t see it coming, blinded by its own fire. He chokes on it when the arrow gets caught in its throat. The fire, finally, stops.

It takes only a moment for the dragon to chew on the arrow and spit boiling hot, dark blood on the ground, but the prince is already running on the opposite direction, intending to jump in the first back alley he finds. The dragons would have to change into their human form to chase him, and that would make them more vulnerable, more on the prince’s level. Unfortunately, when he turns towards the street he came from, he finds it blocked by one of the green dragons. The other one lands on the only other exit. Zitao is still perched over the opening of the well, his voice pounding against the prince’s temples, right into his head. 

“The little mouse is finally trapped...”

One of the green dragons growls, his tail sweeping against the ground, impatient and nervous, but Zitao barks something at him and the creature stops, not daring to disrespect the order and come closer. There’s fury in the eyes of the black dragon, a murderous will, a promise. This measly human boy has hurt him and this affront won’t stay unpunished. The prince can only hope Zitao is angry enough to kill him. If he dies, at least, his secret will be safe. At least, Baekhyun…

Tightening his hold on the guard of his sword, the Prince waits for the final assault. The black dragon looks ready to end the fight, but something suddenly attracts his attention. He raises his head towards the sky, followed by his two allies, looking for something.

The prince doesn’t dare look upwards, too afraid it’s just a trick and he’ll be attacked when he lowers his guard, but he doesn’t need to look up to see it. Something is blocking the faint light of the sun, an ominous shadow that covers both the boy and the dragons, enveloping the square in a veil of black.

For a terrible, painstakingly long moment, the prince is afraid that this is the end, that the Sentinel – Kris, or even worse, the King - has found them. But then the shadow darkens and shrinks as its source gets close to the ground and another dragon lands in front of the prince, between him and Zitao. It’s bigger than the black dragon, almost bigger than the Sentinel. The Prince has only seen the Sentinel once, from afar, but back then he was four and the jade dragon looked taller than a mountain. This dragon is not taller than a mountain, but big enough that his extended wings cover the entire square where the fight is taking place, making it look even smaller. His scales don’t have a precise color. They’re grey and black, teal, cobalt, shimmering and wild like the sea right before a storm. His wings are veined white, like alabaster and sea foam.

The prince knows this dragon, has known him his whole life, even if this is the first time he can see him in his true form. Leviathan, the Sea Snake. He doesn’t breath fire, but when he opens his wings, the curtain of clouds disappears, swept away by his power, and sun shines over the canyon, not red, pale and dying, but white and gold, just for a moment, stronger than anything else the prince has ever seen.

Zitao howls and snarls in pain, his eyes hurt by the light. He knows he can’t defeat the king of the sea. Leviathan only watches as the black dragon urges the small green dragons to leave, before finally taking off himself. Before he takes off, he says something in the language of dragons, all cracks, hisses and rumbles coming deep from their throats, but Leviathan only growls menacingly against him and he leaves with a last, furious growl.

Only when, finally, the three enemies have disappeared beyond the mist clouding the sky, the prince loosens his grip on the sword. Blood trickles down his fingers when he does. He didn’t even realize he was holding the hilt tight enough to hurt himself.

The sound of ancient dragon magic covers the mad hammering of his heart. The prince watches, trying to regain his breath, as the huge dragon known as Leviathan fades away and disappears, shrinking and shortening and shifting until he’s a man - just like the prince is -a short man with a very worried face.

“Junmyeon! What the hell are you doing here?” he asks, forgetting about respect for a moment. The man frowns. “That was too close, my lord. You could’ve been killed, or worse- captured!”

The prince shakes his head. “No no no no," he whispers. "You shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t have come! What if they saw you? What if they found the hideout? You stayed hidden for ten years just to protect our only hope and now you decide to ruin everything?”

Something shifts in Junmyeon’s face. His shoulders fall down, a sign of defeat. The prince starts to feel something cold and slimy blocking his breaths, like an icy, dead hand wrapped around his throat.

“Junmyeon, what happened?”

“Everything is already lost, my lord. The hideout has been found.”

The prince feels his head shake. Vertigo takes over him all at once and he loses his hold on the ground. “Years of patient, careful waiting… Years of hopes…” He doesn’t dare to ask, but he has to know. “Junmyeon, what happened to Baekhyun?”

Junmyeon shakes his head.

“They have him now, my lord. They’ve taken Baekhyun.”

The prince shivers, feeling his world slowly fall to pieces too small to be found.

“What about Jongin? What about my brother?”

Junmyeon takes the prince’s hand. “I’m sorry, Jongdae. Jongin is gone.”

Gone. Jongin is gone. Baekhyun wakes up with a startle, gagging against a smothering feeling of loss. He blinks, realizing his pillow has fallen on the floor and the only reason he hasn’t fallen too is that he’s too tangled in the blankets to be able to move.

He lets out a sigh and kicks the piles of fabric away, rubbing his head as he stands up weakly. Condensation has clogged the glass during the night, turning the landscape outside, frozen paddy fields, dirty countryside streets and gaunt trees stripped of their leaves by the cruel hand of the winter, into a dream. Baekhyun pads softly towards the window and writes a few letters on it with his finger, swiping away the condensation. 

_Jong. In._

He comes back to sleep and dreams of foggy, poisonous lands, lost princes and evil dragons.

**~ Prologue ~**

**Fallen City of Iesunal, Empire**

It's been eight years, but Iesunal is still burning. The fire never really died. It simply found solace underground, making its nest in manholes, storehouses, in old granaries and creaky basements. Smoke rises from the tallest buildings, slipping through the fissures in the rotten walls.

The two cloaked figures who meet at the center of the city, in front of the house of the Governor, might be the first visitors in the last decade.

They're both tall, sharp and raw, made of stones and fire, with dark eyes and pale skin. They stare at each other in silence for a moment, before one of them lower his hood, revealing the crimson hair underneath.

"Did you find it?" he asks, impatient.

"Yes, I've found it, but... let's get inside," suggests the other.

They choose one of the abandoned houses, a big mansion for a rich family. The walls are black and burnt. _A dragon’s doing,_ thinks the man with red hair and black eyes. He knows exactly _which_ dragon did this, who set fire to the city of Iesunal, but it’s in the past. It’s not important anymore.

“So what exactly is this, Chanyeol?” asks the tall man as soon as they're inside, emptying the content of a red velvet drape on the dusty table. It’s a box, a small wooden box garnished with gold miniature flowers and vines.

Chanyeol’s breath catches when he sees the box.

“It’s here, for real.” _After all the time we spent looking for it._

The world takes a big breath to fill the hollow inside its lungs. Chanyeol can hear the whispers echoing inside his head.

 _It’s here, it’s here._ The Vessel has been found. The Prince of Syura has been found.

Wind filters through the rotten shatters and the red drape suddenly comes alive, dancing in the hands of the tall man, trying to break free from his hold. He grunts, annoyed, and the drape catches fire, kindling in a short, intense flame. Its ashes fall like snowflakes on the golden flowers.

Chanyeol, hastily snatches the wooden box away before the ash can taint it. “Be careful,” he snarls. His hands close over it in a tender caress as he checks for eventual damage. Long fingers linger on the precious decorations with a fondness that speaks of lost memories and bittersweet regrets, following the tempered lines of the edges until they dovetail at the center, on a little golden lock. Once he’s satisfied with his inspection, he puts the box down and sighs.

“It’s a box, obviously," he says, answering his companion's question. "A musical box. If you turn the key it opens and makes pretty music.”

“Charming.”

“It was the Radiant Princess’ – his mother’s – favorite," he says, voice tight with nostalgia. "A childhood memory. She used to listen to it for hours.”

“And now her son is trapped inside it.” The sentence hangs in the air, halted, heavy, as if the words themselves are not sure if they're supposed to form a statement or a question. Chanyeol just nods wearily, his crimson locks only accentuating the movement.

“He _is_ trapped inside. What’s left of him, at least.”

The tall man suddenly looks like he regrets having spoken at all.

“Are you sure the Oracle didn’t lie? He knew where this box was all these years, so why did he tell us only now? How can we know whether he’s loyal to the Golden Throne or a traitor?”

“The difference seems to be so thin lately,” says Chanyeol, his voice tight. "Minseok was Baekhyun’s best friend.”

“I just want to know… Will you be alright, Chanyeol?”

Chanyeol looks like he wants to say too many things, weighed down by their number. In the end, he just says, “I have to do it. And I have to do it myself.”

The tall man lets his word sink in the dense silence like stones. He waits until even the echoes of their presence have vanished.

“How can we do this?”

Chanyeol lifts his head. A fire burns bright in his eyes, lighting up their blackness from the inside.

“The box is Cursed. There’s a tiny, tiny world inside, a place without time. If you’re trapped in there, you won’t even realize you’re under a spell, but you’ll be forced to live the same day, over and over again. The perfect trap.”

“We break the spell and get him out, then.”

“No. It’s too powerful, even for two of us, or three, or four. We could involve the entire Crimson Mountain and we still wouldn’t be able to break it through sheer force. But if Baekhyun were to recover his memories, the spell would collapse on its own. We have to open it and enter inside. We have to make him remember.”

The tall man looks at the box, that little gracious chest lacquered and embellished by golden threads. It doesn’t look like it could contain an entire world inside, not even a small one. It doesn’t look like it could contain Baekhyun’s light – he’s not even sure that light is still shining, somewhere in this world or in another one. The tall man looks at the gaping chasm in Chanyeol’s eyes and worries about his best friend.

His eyes find the golden padlock and he frowns.

“We need a key,” he notices, "but we didn’t find any in their hideout. If the little prince or Leviathan have the key, our mission could become quite complicate.”

Chanyeol smiles, all sharp teeth, dark eyes and a broken heart.

“Oh, don’t worry about that. My key is inside that box. Baekhyun will open the door for me.”

“Baekhyun? How would he…?”

“The spell is linked to him. He can let me in, even unconsciously.”

“And why would he? He has no memories of you, Chanyeol.”

Sharper teeth, darker eyes and still the same broken heart, Chanyeol answers, “Memories or not, he will open the door for me. I am his husband, after all, and I loved him.”

**~ Turn the key and you'll hear my song  
Turn the key and remember me ~**

_~ First Turn of the Key ~_

The alarm clock goes off with its loud, monotone beeps, startling Baekhyun. He turns, tosses and switches it off before his mom starts complaining.

A loud, hurried knock confirms that his mom heard it anyway.

“Baekhyun! Wake up! You’ll be late for school!”

He groans.

“I’m already up, mom!”

“I don’t see you in the kitchen eating your breakfast!” she counters. Baekhyun snorts and grabs his school clothes from the hanger, smoothing a wrinkle on the hem of the shirt. He shivers when the door slides open and a gush of cold air hits his ankles and naked feet. He almost wants to go back to the bed, but his mom would come to wake him up in less than five minutes anyway. He can smell soup though, so he bravely steps out of the room and into the cold alley, walking the three steps that divide his room from the kitchen as fast as he can.

“Finally! I was just going to call you again!” Baekhyun yawns and says a sleepy “morning” at his mom, smiling when she places a big bowl of soup in front of him.

“Eat fast, I don’t want you to miss the bus again.”

The warning makes Baekhyun roll his eyes because he’s never missed the bus, so she doesn’t really have any space to complain. She notices and hits him with a clean spatula.

“What was that for?”

“For being a brat, obviously.”

He retreats to his room as soon as he finishes eating. The worried voice of his mom telling him he only has five minutes follows him around the house as he brushes his teeth and washes his face.

“You’re gonna be late, Baekhyun!”

“I only have to look for my paper! It’s due today!”

She grumbles something about him never being able to find it because the room is too messy. Baekhyun wants to shout something back but his room is definitely too messy and in the end he can’t find it. “Oh well. I didn’t finish it anyway.”

Grabbing his backpack, he steals one last glance at himself in the mirror before he goes out. Despite his combing attempts, his dark hair are sticking out in every direction, giving his mother a perfect excuse to frown at him on his way out. “Gloves, ok, scarf, ok, do I have my headphones?”

“Baekhyun, you’re gonna miss the bus!”

“Ok, Mom, ok, I’m going!”

For a moment, his attention is drawn to the window, where the little doodle he traced with his fingers on the foggy glass last night has almost disappeared. He can still make out a few letters, but some of the lines have dimmed and he can’t read the whole word. Jong…

“What was that? Something I dreamed last night?” he muses.

“Baekhyun!”

“I’m coming!”

He shuts the sliding door closed and runs outside, chirping a “Bye, Mom!” on his way out.

Complete silence falls on the room upon his departure. The little letters traced on the window lose definition and finally disappear, eaten by the condensation, as if they had never been there in the first place.

Baekhyun lives in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere. A bunch of houses, barely enough students to fill two classes for each year in the local high school, a lot of paddy fields. They don’t even have a train station. The city and the hills surrounding it stand on an island circled by a river, but there's only one bridge connecting it to the outer world and the railway would have to run over it in order to reach the town. It’s too dangerous, especially during winter, when the heavy rains make the river flood and swallow the bridge whole. The closest city is a good two hours away by car, for those lucky enough to have one. Baekhyun is not one of them, so his only choice is the express bus that comes only once every week. It’s expensive, too expensive for the son of a single woman who works as a waiter at the family restaurant near the soccer field, but if there’s a thing Baekhyun is good at, it’s hoping. And dreaming.

The bus arrives with an angry cry of old, overused brakes. It used to be colorful in the past, but now, rusty and bruised by time and a lot of rain, it’s only grey. Baekhyun is the first to get inside, dripping water everywhere. The bus driver sends him an annoyed glance but doesn’t say anything because everyone else is drenched too.

Small, boring and rainy. Three words to describe Baekhyun’s town and Baekhyun’s life too. The town is so small there are only three bus stops, one near the coin laundry service shop, one thankfully situated in front of Baekhyun’s house and the third one on top of the hill, in front of the school. It’s actually close enough that the students prefer to walk during summer, but now it’s winter, the paddy fields are flooded and frozen and all the roads are nothing more than long snakes of mud. On winter, it rains so hard the bus takes almost forty minutes to reach the school, slowly and carefully navigating under the pounding water to avoid any car accident.

It sucks, because Baekhyun actually has to get up early every morning, but it’s also fine, because he can rest his head against the foggy glass and watch outside for the duration of the ride. The landscape flows in front of him, washed away by the eternal tag game of raindrops on the window. Baekhyun knows this scenery by heart. He sees it every morning - always the same always the same - and every morning, as the same streets and houses, the same paddies, the same river that hugs the city like a wedding ring run in front of his eyes in a blurred, watery slow motion, Baekhyun swears that, one day, he’ll leave this place. He’s meant for something better, he feels it in his bones. All he needs is a chance.

The rest of the day is stifled in unreal, ethereal calm. The air is heavy, so thick with humidity and static energy that it weighs even on the time. The hours tick too slowly, dragging their boring folds through the long classes Baekhyun has to take. His only comfort, watching the scenery out of the window, is lost in the thick fog surrounding the hill, a white wall of nothingness that seems to stretch forever, consuming the rest of the world.

The school is too big, wide classrooms with high ceilings and endless corridors. It’s also humid and a little dark, but only because it’s raining outside. Baekhyun tries to remember what the old building was like during spring, when the first, shy daisies peeked up from the wild fields around the baseball field, and the tepid glow of the sun made going to school almost bearable. Even if he closes his eyes, he can’t picture it. The dark cloud and the skeleton-white fog hugging the city in their wet embrace seem to have swallowed Baekhyun’s happy memories too.

“Maybe Mr. Byun wants to answer this question? Mr. Byun?”

His eyes snap opens and he almost curses. He can’t believe he was caught daydreaming by Mrs. Kim like this.

“Ehm, I...”

“Is it transitive or intransitive?”

He steals a look at the blackboard, where complicated words in a foreign language swim in front of his eyes.

“I’d say... transitive?”

Someone lets out a cold snicker and Baekhyun feels heat creep up on his neck and reach his ears, mercifully covered by dark hair.

Mrs. Kim crosses her arms and sighs. “Nice try, but it was intransitive... Now, if no one else got distracted...”

Baekhyun falls back against the back of the chair, feeling his face with the back of his hand and finding it so hot he’s surprised it’s not burning. He feels like an idiot, mostly because of the cold, amused laughs of the rest of his classmates.

He takes a look around to see if someone is still staring at him, but everyone else has gone back to paying attention to what Mrs. Kim is saying. Bored and boring faces. Baekhyun knows them all - they are, after all, the same kids he’s always played with since he was a toddler - but he can hardly remember their names. He’s never been close with the people in his class and he doesn’t have any intention to start being their friend now.

At the end of the class, he fills his backpack as quickly as he can, hoping only to go home and enjoy a nice tub of warm water and hot cocoa made by his mom. Of course, things aren’t that easy.

“Mr. Byun, can you come here?”

He can’t really say no, so he murmurs a goodbye to everyone else and marches, slowly and heavily, towards the desk.

“You haven’t chosen your future career path yet, and you’re the only one in your year who hasn’t submitted the form. What are you waiting for?”  
He stammers, almost trips on his own feet at the sudden question. “Uhm, I... I wanted to study Politics in university, but the closest faculty is...”

“In the city, right? Two hours away.” Mrs. Kim’s eyes are small and bright. “And you don’t know if your mother can afford it, right?”

Actually, Baekhyun _knows_ his mother can’t afford it, but he simply nods back.

“My scores aren’t good enough to get a scholarship,” he adds. “But that’s always been my only dream. I want to leave this city. If I can’t do that, there’s not anything else I want to do.”

“Well, think about it. Of course, if you started putting some effort in your assignments, those could be a great way to improve your scores. I’ve heard from Professor Lee that you didn’t turn in your World History paper.”

Baekhyun blushes again, hotter this time, and checks around to see if someone else is still there. Luckily, he’s alone with the teacher. Being scolded by Mr. Lee this morning in class has already been embarrassing enough.

“I want an answer before the end of the week, Byun.”

He bows politely and goes back to his desk to grab the backpack, freezing for a moment when he see the school bus getting ready to leave from the window next to his desk.

“Oh, crap!” he murmurs under his breath, grabbing the backpack and only turning to greet the teacher. “See you tomorrow, Mrs. Kim!” he shouts, running madly down the stairs and rushing towards the main hall. He has to stop by the lockers to change his shoes - it’s still raining too much to use his clean school shoes outside.

Despite all his best efforts, Baekhyun actually manages to lose the bus. He arrives just as the long vehicle disappears beyond the rusty gates of the school, and all Baekhyun has left is a curse on his lips.

“Fuck! Well done, Baekhyun, well done.”

He frowns at the menacing, nasty clouds crowding the sky, a promise of more rain to come. He knows from experience that they’re only waiting for him to leave the safety of the school courtyard to break down and release a waterfall of cold water on his back. But the last bus is in a few minutes less than two hours and Baekhyun needs to get home before it becomes too dark or his mom will get worried.

“Come on Baekhyun, don’t be a little girl, it’s just a little rain.” The sky rumbles in the distance, as if to prove him wrong. “Ok, I get it, more than a little rain!”

Finally, he decides to borrow a lonely, forgotten umbrella from the rack. One of the ends is splintered and broken but Baekhyun won’t complain. Soon enough he’ll be so drenched that having an umbrella won’t make a difference anymore. Wishing himself good luck, he steps out in the rain and starts walking towards the town.

Thunder rumbles in the distance and lightning breaks the suffocating darkness of the sky for a split moment, but the rain swallows the flash of electric white as soon as it appears. Baekhyun can only feel the cold, wrapped around him like a cruel lover. His bangs are so drenched they stick to his eyes in the most annoying way. Every time he tries to move them, he has to swing the umbrella above his head and receive a bucket of water on his forehead. So annoying.

There aren’t enough lampposts to keep the road well-lit and the few that are there blink their shaky light on and off like drunk fireflies. Baekhyun has to squint hard to see under all the running water. It’s too dark, even for a rainy day.

Baekhyun is really regretting not waiting for the next bus at school, warm and protected, when he hears the first crack. It’s not loud or deafening, and for a moment Baekhyun thinks he’s hearing it in his head. Then comes the second one, and a third one too. Faint, but firm sounds that seem to cut through the rain, reaching Baekhyun from a faraway place.

“What’s going on?” he asks, more to himself than to someone else. Another crack resounds in the air and this time it’s louder, loud enough for Baekhyun to hear it clearly over the thunderous pounding of water on the cold ground. “If this is your idea of a joke, then please give up. This is not funny at all!” He shouts, this time, hoping it’s really a joke. Maybe someone is hiding in the darkness, only waiting to scare him. His voice breaks on the last words. It’s too cold, no one would be willing to risk a bad case of pneumonia just to scare Byun Baekhyun. And then why would they? Baekhyun has no enemies. He has no friends either.

Holding the strings of his backpack tight, he takes a split decision. He’s almost at the end of the hill. If he runs, in less than five minutes he can reach the river. The road is better lit there and maybe he’ll be able to meet some of the farmers working on the paddy fields close by. He takes a good breath, getting ready to sprint.

That’s when he sees it. A fissure in the sky, behind the clouds, like a badly stitched scar that never really stopped bleeding.

“What-”

The next crack takes him by surprise. He hears it, right above him, closer than he thought it was possible. It’s a strange sound, something between torn paper, hammering and finger snapping. It feels like something dark sneaking inside the room while you sleep, like the monster hidden inside the closet and trying to get out. Baekhyun has never been an easily scared child. He never had to worry about anything even remotely scary in his life, no nightmares, no phobias of any type. But when he hears the crack, the breath he was taking gets stuck inside his throat, cold and heavy. He turns on his side, but there’s nothing next to him, nothing and no one, but when he looks upwards, the ugly crack in the sky has deepened, thickened, the seams look ready to give up and fall apart. That’s when Baekhyun starts running.

He runs like his life depends on it, throwing the umbrella away to have both his hands free. The rain whiplashes his face and burns his eyes, but he never stops until he can see the lights of the road next to the river. Panting, tripping, shivering, he lets the creepy cracks and snaps behind and almost falls on the last few steps.

Light. Safety. People. Finally. Then, suddenly, the breath he was taking clogs his throat and every light disappears. The lampposts of the bridge explode with a bright shower of sparks just as a wild thunder, the biggest thunder Baekhyun has ever seen, falls from the fissure right over the city, white on black, and then white white white. For a moment, the entire valley lights up like under a firework. Then, with a deafening buzz, it disappears in the darkness.

Baekhyun stops, frozen on his tracks, lungs exploding from the sudden effort. Adrenaline kicks in, turning blind fear into foolish bravery. He turns towards the hill.

“What the hell do you want from me?”

He wasn’t expecting a voice to answer, from everywhere and from nowhere, a voice that sounds like molten lava crawling out from the deepest crevices of the earth. “A key.”

“A… key?”

A dark chuckle answers him. Baekhyun feels it on his skin, it rolls on his wet collarbones like an intimate caress, crawling under the wet fabric to curl around his lungs. “Yes, I need a key or I can’t enter.”

“Enter where?” he asks in a small voice.

“Your world.”

“I don’t have a key.”

“Oh, but you do.”

There’s a lot of questions Baekhyun could ask. Who are you? for example. What are you? Are you evil? Why would you think I have a key? Why do you even want to come here, in such a boring place? Instead, he asks, “Why would I let you enter?”

The voice this time speaks right inside his ear. For a moment, Baekhyun feels a presence, an imposing, powerful presence next to him, leaning down to whisper in his ear, its breath scorching hot against Baekhyun’s damp hair.

“Because you were waiting for me, of course. I am your best chance to leave this place.”  
Baekhyun hesitates. For a moment, his life flashes in front of him. Small, boring and rainy. Like his small, boring and rainy city. He can feel the electricity in the air, he can feel the presence, pushing against invisible borders, he can feel the end of his world crack as something ominous and terrible, something incredibly powerful pushes against it, demanding entrance. Demanding _permission_. From Byun Baekhyun.

“Are you a demon?” he asks, voice weak under the tickling sound of the rain.

“Wouldn’t you like to find out for yourself?”

“Do you want my soul?”

“I want many things from you. And I can give you something back. I can take you out of this cage, I can show you the world, the _real_ world. Beyond this city, beyond this river and this bridge, beyond everything you’ve always believed into. I can be your chance.”

It’s a trap, Baekhyun knows it’s a trap. The creature speaks to Baekhyun’s soul, playing him like a fine instrument, touching the strings of his most secret wishes.

“Just let me in, Baekhyunnie, and I’ll save you. Together we can cheat destiny.”

Baekhyunnie. Why does it sounds so familiar? Baekhyun wants to run away, but his feet won’t take a step away from the source of this voice. Ghost arms close around Baekhyun and his heart misses a beat. “Can I come in, Baekhyunnie?”

“Yes.”

A single word, like a spell, and Baekhyun hears a last crack, the loudest, most ominous of them all. The sky breaks above Baekhyun’s head, a fracture like a thunder splits it in two with such force that even the clouds are swept away. Lightning pours out of it, red lightning, so bright and vivid Baekhyun has to close his eyes because it’s the first time his eyes see a color so intense, so vibrant - it feels like the first time he’s seen color at all.

Lightning flashes down, zigzags on the air, but suddenly it’s not lightning anymore. It discloses its wings, blazing hot, crimson and gold and Baekhyun has never seen anything so beautiful in his whole life. It’s not a demon, but a dragon, a crimson dragon, and Baekhyun thinks the sky is breaking but it doesn’t matter, because the dragon flies towards him and the sky falls.

_~ Second Turn of the Key ~_

**Syura, City of the Sun**

The sun has already started his slow journey to the lands behind the sea, turning endless planes of blue water and golden sand into dark amber, when the dragons arrive. Baekhyun is the first to spot their caravan, a long trail of figures so tiny they look like colorful toys. He almost falls down from the balcony of the stargazing tower trying to catch them with his small fingers. Luckily, Lu Han catches him from behind and doesn’t let go until Baekhyun’s flailing feet are safely set on the majolica floor again.

“Careful, Your Highness, we’ll all be in trouble if you break your pretty head like this.”

“But he’s coming, did you see it? It’s them, right? It must be them!” He pulls on Lu Han’s robe, eager, almost jumping up and down in his excitement. “He’s coming for me!”

Lu Han scans the dunes, immediately spotting the travelling party. He blinks and, for a moment, his black pupils narrow vertically, and the white of his eyes turns to gold. When he blinks again, his eyes are back to their normal color. “Yes, Your Highness, it’s them. The kid had foretold it, after all. It looks like we’ve found the new Oracle for real this time,” he mumbles to himself. “Well, I must go tell the King that his guests are on the way, then. Cheer up, Your Highness, it looks like your prince has finally come.”

Baekhyun nods and waves Lu Han off, too impatient to go back to the window. He can hardly see the caravan now, the vibrant colors lost in the first rumblings of the night. Soon enough it will reach the castle and Baekhyun will finally meet his betrothed.

“And where is this young rascal going?”

A strong hand comes to take him by the neck, raising him like a doll. “Hi, lion cub.”

“Put me down, Sunyoung! I can walk by myself!” Baekhyun's sister-in-law only laughs and raises him even higher, enjoying Baekhyun’s panicked scream. She’s tall, but thin, not showing yet, with tiny wrists and stick-like arms, but Baekhyun is eight years old and she can easily keep him up in the air for a few seconds if she wants. All the guards start to snicker. Time for Baekhyun to use his secret weapon. “You’ll hurt the baby if you don’t put me down!”

She grimaces and lets Baekhyun go. “I won’t be pregnant forever, Baekhyunnie,” she threatens. He sticks his tongue at her, eliciting a laugh, and scampers away before she can catch him again. “I’ll just ask Baekbeom to make another baby with you.”

To this, Sunyoung only laughs harder. “I was planning to ask him myself, but if you’re so kindly offering...”

“When you’ll have your baby you’ll also have to take care of him!”

She pretends to think about it. “I could also ask you to take care of the baby. You are to be his uncle after all.”

She smirks at Baekhyun’s terrified face. “Come on, baby lion. Your mother is waiting for you. She must make you pretty for your fiancé. This is the first time you’re meeting him, so you must leave a good impression.”

Baekhyun takes Sunyoung's hand like a good boy, and follows her to the rooms of the Radiant Princess to get ready for the welcome banquet.

The Palace of the Sun has never been this lively. Servants walks around in a hurry, polishing the candle holders, opening all the curtains, making sure that every inch of the area that has been assigned to them shines like a precious stone under the shaky light of the candles. The ladies-in-waiting have been sent out by their patrons to investigate what the other noblewomen are going to wear for the formal dinner, and bards and musicians are keeping their voices warm and their instruments tuned. Wherever Baekhyun turns his eyes, he can see young kids scampering around on their short legs. They’re either page boys sent on a last minute errand or servants used to bring messages around the palace to coordinate the staff.

Baekhyun knows them well. When his teachers take pity on him and let him ditch the last hours of his afternoon classes, he usually goes and finds these kids. He plays with them all the time in the endless corridors of the castle, hide-and-seek, blindman's bluff and cops and thieves. Most of them aren’t much older than the prince, but they all treat Baekhyun like one of them, for good or for bad. It's nice to have someone who listens to him, not because Baekhyun is the prince, but because Baekhyun is the only one who can beat Minho, the kitchen scullion, with just his quick mind and a small sling.

Normally, he'd stop to greet his friends. Maybe he'd let them take a good laugh at the precious gems woven into his hair and at his stupid golden robe - he does feel like he's wrapped in gift paper. Today he can't. Minho and Jinki, Kikwang, Kyungri, Taeil, Sungjae and little Yerim. They simply bow in front of him before they run away with their head ducked. Today they’re not Baekhyun’s playmates in the biggest, shiniest playground of the world. Today they’re servants during an important diplomatic dinner. And Baekhyun is the Heir of the Golden Throne, first in the line of succession after King Heechul.

He watches his friends go away, frowning when he realizes most of them are still trying not to laugh of his flashy attire. He’ll have to take his revenge later, after the party, when they’ll not be playing a masquerade for the sake of important guests.

For now, Baekhyun squirms and giggles, wondering when he’ll finally be able to meet his fiancé, and what he’ll look like. Of course, this is not the first time Baekhyun gets to see a dragon. Lu Han is a dragon himself, but even if he came from the nest of the Crimson Mountain, he's a little different. Sometimes, Leviathan, the King of the Sea Snakes, pays a visit to the palace too, to visit the Queen and the princesses of the court. But he's not a fire dragon, he's a sea snake, so he's different too. This isn’t even the first time an embassy from the Crimson Mountain comes to the Palace of the Sun, but Baekhyun has never been admitted to the presence of a dragon of the Crimson court.

He knows how a dragon of the Crimson court is supposed to look in his human form, though. Dark eyes and pale skin. Fire in their eyes at the tip of their fingers.

The Crimson Mountain, the tallest mountain in the chain of Utneg, hides the biggest dragon nest of Asunki, the kingdom of Syura. It’s not just a mountain, but a fire spitting volcano, Assor Alosi in the language of the dragons. It means red island, a name that comes from ancient times, when the peninsula of Asunki was still trapped under the sea. There was only water, water everywhere, and a red and black island made of fire and lava.

Between the ashes and vapors coming out of the mouth of the volcano every day and the smoke created by the fire breathing ability of the thousands of dragons living in its cavities, the summit of the Crimson Mountain is always covered in a dark cloud that doesn’t let a single ray of sunlight hit the nest, hence the characteristics of the dragons of the Crimson court. Pale skin, for never being exposed to the sun, and black eyes, developed after an eternity of living in the darkness. For the same reason, most dragons are weak to sunlight and they cannot see well in their dragon form during the day. 

Dark eyes, pale skin and a beauty so perfect and powerful it can drive men to madness. This is what Baekhyun is expecting in his fiancé.

Baekhyun has learnt a lot about dragons through the illustrated books his parents have bought for him, and some through Lu Han’s tales. Even though Lu Han hasn’t been part of the Crimson court for centuries, he still remembers everything. _Time has passed Baekhyunnie, but dragons will never change because they are like their mountains. Time passes, but the heart of a mountain stays the same._

Baekhyun walks through the doors of the banquet hall trusting Lu Han’s words so much that he’s not ready for the sight waiting for him inside. All the people from the delegation are tall, pale and regal. All but one. Baekhyun’s eyes slide past the proud warriors, past the king and the queen of the dragons, past the members of the Crimson court, to focus on the only children in the delegation. Baekhyun’s future husband is a short, fluffy kid with a round face, a bad sunburn on his nose and an arrogant, disdainful pout curling his lips downward in a perpetual expression of annoyance.

Their eyes meet. Baekhyun doesn’t know what this boy was expecting to find in him, but he knows what he was expecting to find in this boy. He’s also sure that his future husband is perfectly able to detect the disappointment in his face. And it doesn’t please him. The dragon prince's eyes narrow, like an omen of danger. His lips curl downwards even more, before he turns his face haughtily to the other side.

The perfect image Baekhyun had pictured in his mind shatters in the annihilating silence of the hall. It doesn’t make a sound as it disappears, allowing Baekhyun to distinctly hear the sound of his childish, tender heart breaking for the first time.

King Heechul beckons him to come forward. “Our prince has finally come! Baekhyun, let me introduce you to Chanyeol of the Crimson Mountain, prince of the dragons.”  
Chanyeol of the Crimson Mountain has stunning, vivid crimson hair. How fitting, thinks Baekhyun, as he holds up his hand for his future’s husband to kiss. Chanyeol’s eyes too flash crimson as he takes it.

~

The rhythmic beep of the alarm clock crashes through Baekhyun’s dream and he tosses and turns on the other side, ducking under the pillow to avoid the blade of light coming from the kitchen.

“Baekhyun! I can hear the alarm clock! Get up before it’s late!”

Baekhyun groans at the loud yelling. He’s not in the mood to go to classes today, but he knows that if he doesn’t get up on his own his mother will barge in the room and throw him off the bed. He’s not up for such a traumatic experience, not this early in the morning.

He yawns, puts his feet on the ground... and freezes.

Broken scenes of the dream he had during the night invade his mind, so vivid they burn behind his eyes and make his head hurt. Golden sand turning into sapphire dust at night, a castle built at the edge of a sea of sand and a desert of water where no ship dares to sail. Dragon with pale eyes and dark eyes with a crimson gleam.

_What was that?_

“Baekhyun!”

Baekhyun jerks up and the dream vanishes, swept away by the greyness of his usual life. He bites his lip, trying to summon it again, but it’s gone. He swallows a sigh.

“I’m coming,” he calls to his mom before she calls for him again.

It’s too late to eat breakfast so he just grabs a packet of chocolate bread from the pantry and scampers away before his mom can express her rage for his unhealthy eating habits.

While he changes into his school uniform, his World History paper seems to wink at him from where it's lying, unfinished, on the desk. Baekhyun picks it up and scowls at the incomplete ending. He’ll have to finish it in classroom before the third class starts. For a moment, he feels confused. “What are you doing here? Didn’t I look for you before? How strange.” But it’s too late to muse over lost, unfinished papers, so he snatches the clipped sheets from the table and shoves them into his backpack before he rushes outside to catch the school bus.

The rainstorm that has been plaguing the city for days gave a few hours of break during the night, but today the sky is heavy with rain again, the air thick and dense, almost electric. It looks like the entire world is brooding and complaining under its breath. Baekhyun shares the feeling.

The bus is late and cold breathes on Baekhyun's back, blowing shivers in his bones. He feels antsy, nervous. Invisible eyes crawls under the collar of his shirt, but when he turns around no one is looking at him.

"Come on, Baekhyun, don't be stupid."

He tries to shake the sensation away, scrolling his head like a wet dog. It’s a perfectly normal morning in a perfectly normal neighborhood where nothing ever happens. There’s no reason to feel so… threatened. But, no matter how much he tries, he can’t get rid of the looming feeling. 

When the bus, finally, arrives, splashing cold water all over Baekhyun’s uniform slacks, he takes the sensation of uneasiness with him inside as he collapses on a random seat at the back of the bus with a tired yawn. He throws the backpack to the next one to prevent anyone from trying and sitting next to him, too tired to deal with forced socialization. No one would do it anyway, there aren't enough high school students in this city to fill even half of the bus.

Baekhyun leans his forehead against the foggy window and stares outside. The strengthened glass deforms the shape of the first raindrops falling from the sky like tears, turning the little country roads surrounding the street in a watercolor black-and-white impression of trees and rice fields. On a normal day, the faint purr of the bus and the sound of the rain hitting his window would lull Baekhyun to sleep, but not this morning. He’s too restless, too electric. He shifts on the seat, unable to close his eyes.

He takes a glance at the road again. The bus has already abandoned the city, leaving behind the last houses to take the road that coasts the river. Baekhyun looks past the angry waves, to the impenetrable wall of trees on the other side. He wanted to take a look at the big city, to caress the tips of its skyscrapers with greedy eyes, but the fog is too thick.

Baekhyun spent all his life in this little town and has no memory of anything else. He’s always wanted to go out and see the world - the real world, not a little glass ball containing a river, a hill, a little town, a couple of fields and a high school. He wants to see the capital and find a decent job that doesn’t involve staying bent twenty-four seven under the rain, cold water licking at his knees, to make sure that rice grows well. For a moment, he’s tempted to get off the bus, cross the bridge and simply leave. It would be so easy, to do just that. To leave behind his boring life and the greyness of this little country town where it’s always raining.

A powerful wave hits the barrier set on the riverbank against the frequent floods and Baekhyun wakes up from the dream. What a silly idea, to leave the town like that and make his mom worry. Moreover, the bridge is closed today. The wind is too strong.  
Baekhyun heaves a sigh and his eyelashes flutter. Sleep is finally coming, unfortunately when there are only ten minutes of ride left until they reach the school. He lolls his head up and down to a song playing inside his head, eyes half-closed and unfocused. That’s when a brilliant flash burns through his lowered eyelids. His eyes widen impossibly and he sees red, even if just for a moment. Crimson wings, vivid and alive against the grey sky. It lasts less than a heartbeat, then the winged creature disappears above the clouds, hiding from Baekhyun’s eyes so quickly that the boy doesn’t even have the time to be surprised.

He opens his mouth, closes it. He wants to tell someone what he just saw, but there’s no one sitting next to him. There’s no one willing to listen. But Baekhyun is sure of what he saw, even if it looked like a dream. And, speaking of dreams... it dawns on Baekhyun with the strength of thunder, a detail from the dream he had yesterday night. A dream about dragons.

Baekhyun doesn't hear a single word in class for the whole morning, too absorbed in thought of what he saw. A dragon. He’s sure he saw a dragon. But maybe he was wrong, maybe it was only a big red bird, maybe a game of light and perspective made it look bigger than it really was. He shakes his head. There are no red birds in town, only big crows and starved pigeons.

He sighs and lets his head fall on the language book spread in front of him. The little letters dance in front of his eyes like ants. Mrs. Kim talks but Baekhyun cannot listen. He flips a few pages, trying to find the right passage, and even steals a look at the student in front of him, but he can’t read the number of the page.

“Maybe Mr. Byun wants to answer this question? Mr. Byun?”

He turns towards the professor, snapping out of his thoughts. The entire classroom is staring at him. “Yes, I mean... It’s a transitive verb.”

Mrs. Kim crosses her arms and sighs. “Nice try, but it was intransitive.” He bows weakly, focusing on the flower sewed on Mrs. Kim’s grey pullover in order to avoid looking at her face. His face feels warm. “Please pay attention Mr. Byun.”

He nods again, murmuring an apology. His eyes fall to the side, on the glass of the window stained by limestone, and he freezes. There’s someone standing in front of the gates.

From the window, he can see the deserted baseball field - the rain has turned it into a swamp, all ashen mud and the soft footprints of all the students - and there’s no mistaking the tall figure standing at the end of the baseball field, a few steps inside the school gates. His hair is an open wound in the fabric of Baekhyun’s reality, so red where everything else is so colorless. Baekhyun doesn’t know him, but…

Baekhyun jumps on his two feet, toppling the chair and surprising the entire classroom.

“Mr. Byun, is everything alright?” asks, hesitant, Mrs. Kim.

“Yes, I mean... No, no it’s not alright! My... stomach hurts so bad!” He brings his hands to his belly and fakes a grimace, bending forward as if he can’t bear to stand straight. “I think I need to go the infirmary, Mrs. Kim.”

She looks dubious, but she lets him go.

“You look so pale though, should I ask Lee to take you there? You look like you’re going to faint soon.”

“There’s no need Mrs. Kim, thank you!”

He closes the door and watches around to make sure that the corridor is empty before he dashes towards the stairs. He skips the last three steps with a jump and lands with a grimace in front of the entrance, almost falling to his knees. He doesn’t even stop to change his shoes, but he comes to regret it when, leaving the main building of the school, he steps right into a giant puddle, irreparably staining the white school shoes.  
The rain hits his shoulders, hard and unforgiving. It’s like walking inside a running shower and Baekhyun’s sweater is drenched in less than three seconds, but that doesn’t stop him either.

He doesn’t know why he’s running towards the boy with red hair, but it feels like something terrible will happen if he doesn’t - and maybe something terrible is already happening, but that boy seems to have all the answers Baekhyun needs.

Baekhyun is halfway through the baseball field when the boy finally notices him. Baekhyun is afraid he’ll run away and disappear like one of his strange dreams, but the boy doesn’t move. He waits for Baekhyun to arrive and reciprocates the curious glance Baekhyun sends him.

He’s dressed simply. Heavy boots, a black sweater, dark blue jeans. Up close, he’s cruelly beautiful. He has the kind of features Baekhyun would expect to see in a movie, or in a prince from fairy tales, pretty, but still strong enough to tell of the strength of his character. His eyes are so black they almost have no reflexes and Baekhyun is so lost in staring that he almost misses the question.

“You can see me?”

The boy’s voice is so deep and low, it doesn’t match his face at all. Baekhyun stutters, not expecting what to answer.

“Of course, I... I saw you, from the window,” he says, as if that is enough of an explanation. He starts feeling hot, despite the cold rain. Hot from embarrassment. He can’t believe he ran all the way from the classroom just to talk with this boy. Now that he thinks about it, it looks totally stalker-ish.

“From the window? So you don’t remember about yesterday?” Baekhyun blinks, unsure, and the boy frowns, but then his face almost splits in a relieved smile. “Oh, but it doesn’t matter. You can really see me. This is... unexpected. I thought it would’ve taken more time.”

“More time of what, exactly?”

“Oh, you know, prodding around, poking at the pillars, messing up with the defensive mechanism of this place. You shouldn’t have been able to see me so early, but the spell is weaker than I thought. If I’m not careful, it’ll collapse before I have accomplished my mission.”

Now Baekhyun is completely lost. He has no idea what this boy is talking about. Also, something is off with this person. Baekhyun can’t pinpoint what, but his mind is sending him all kinds of twisted signals about the boy with red hair.

“Excuse me? Pillars? Mission? _Spell?_ Are you alright?”

The boy frowns, ignoring Baekhyun’s confusion. “I’m a bit disappointed though. You aren’t exactly what I was expecting.” His eyes narrow and he stares at Baekhyun, taking in his pathetic appearance, his drenched clothes, his average face. Baekhyun shrinks under his gaze, feeling tiny and ugly, until the boy finally lets him go. “It’s really you, though, maybe a little faded and frayed at the edges. Not that it does matter.” His eyes grow distant for a moment. “You will do.”

“What are you talking about?” exclaims Baekhyun, tired and more than a little creeped out.

“Oh, looks like I’ve run out of time. Don’t worry Baekhyunnie, tomorrow I’ll be able to stay more, hopefully!”

Baekhyun takes a step backwards and sneakily looks around, trying to see if there are other people in the courtyard. He doesn’t like the idea of being alone with the strange boy who says strange stuff. The strange boy who says strange stuff and knows Baekhyun’s name. Maybe he’s also starting to regret running like an idiot just to see him. 

“You talk like a madman,” he blurts.

The boy smirks. “I’m not the one standing here and talking to myself, though.”

Baekhyun blinks.

“What do you mean talking to- Oh.”

The boy has disappeared and Baekhyun is alone in front of the gates, wet from head to toe, talking to no one. The sound of the rain falling on the ground grows in intensity, becoming almost deafening. It swallows Baekhyun’s labored breaths.

_But I saw him- he was right here!_

He wants to cry because he’s sure now that this boy is just making a fool of him. He doesn’t understand, but he can still feel his presence in the air, powerful and overwhelming.

Then, he realizes where the bizarre sense of wrongness he felt came from. The boy’s red hair was dry, just like his clothes. He remember them with painful clarity, vivid, crimson waves falling softly on his forehead, untouched by the heavy rain falling copiously around them.

Baekhyun stares at his own sleeve. The white of the shirt is so wet it became see-through. The sweater is heavy and cold with water and Baekhyun’s hair are uncomfortably stuck to his skin. There’s no way that boy could’ve been dry under the rain, right? But there’s no way that boy could’ve disappeared like that, either.

Baekhyun shakes his head and comes back inside, before one of the teachers can see him. The thought of the boy haunts him for the rest of the day. Baekhyun didn’t even ask him what his name was.

_~ Third Turn of the Key ~_

**Syura, City of the Sun**

The wisteria trees are the first to burn. Baekhyun can only look with huge eyes as the lilac petals disappear into ashes while dark smoke rises in hypnotic coils, pooling lazily under the glass vault of the greenhouse.

“Chanyeol, stop it,” he says in a whisper, but it’s useless. The fire jumps gracefully, like a flaming ballerina, from the wisteria trees to the rose hedges - mauve and purple roses, the favorite of the Radiant Princess - and crackles against the tender leaves.

“Chanyeol!” screams Baekhyun, hands going to the collar of Chanyeol’s shirt but stopping just shy of the fabric. Baekhyun hesitates. Chanyeol is burning his mother’s garden, but he’s still a guest. And Baekhyun’s fiancé. That split moment of doubt costs the life of an entire row of jacarandas, their lavender flowers burning almost as prettily as the wisteria’s ones.

Chanyeol wordlessly snaps his fingers and a flame grows in his palm, like a little globe of fire. Baekhyun can see its glow reflexed in Chanyeol’s eyes.

“What do you want to do now? You already destroyed my mother’s favorite garden, aren’t you happy?”

Chanyeol snorts. “I care nothing for your garden. I am a dragon. I am destruction.”

Now it’s Baekhyun’s turn to snort. “Such a dragon you are! I’ve heard you can’t even turn into your beast form so lay down, you’re not better than me right now!”

Hot anger flashes in Chanyeol’s eyes and Baekhyun is almost sure that the boy will throw the fireball at him. He swallows and takes a step towards Chanyeol. He will not be remembered as the King who ran away when his fiancé tried to roast him like a chicken. The gesture surprises the boy, though. He stares at Baekhyun suspiciously, then closes his fingers around the fire, suffocating it in his palm.

“I am not marrying you, whatever you say or do. And that garden sucked anyway.”

He doesn’t have the time to say anything else. The guards of the palace arrive in a hurry, carrying buckets of water.

One of the gardeners, easily recognizable by the brown, blue-rimmed vest, takes Baekhyun’s hand. “What are you doing here, Prince? You must get out immediately, it’s too dangerous!” She hesitates before approaching Chanyeol, years of evolution telling her to stay away, instincts screaming _dragon, danger, fire_. Chanyeol is aware of this and an arrogant smile tugs at the corners of his mouth. It makes Baekhyun’s blood boil and he grabs Chanyeol’s hand himself, ignoring the other boy disgusted gasp. “Let’s go!”

They leave the greenhouse in a hurry and when Baekhyun turns back he can only see a glass vault filled with smoke, little hints of red poking out from the thick fire where the flames are too high and lively.

“I’ll take them,” says a firm voice, and it’s with the relief that the gardener leaves both of the princes in Lu Han’s hands and leaves to help saving the garden.

Lu Han stares at the boys, his eyes dark. Baekhyun holds his gaze, while Chanyeol stubbornly stares at the ground.

“Baekhyunnie, I think you need to see your mother now, to explain her what happened to her violet garden.”

“I... Yes, sir.” He can’t help but see Chanyeol’s victorious smile and frown at it, but it doesn’t last long. “You and I have a lot to talk about too, Chanyeol. What you did today was unacceptable.”

Baekhyun smirks, finally feeling smug. Chanyeol growls and Lu Han sighs.

“Why are you still there, Baekhyun? Your mother. Now. Go with him, Minseok.”

Both Baekhyun and Chanyeol turn towards the portal Lu Han has just come from and they see a short boy wearing a black vest, staring composedly at them. Baekhyun’s eyes widen when he finally recognizes one of his playmates, Lady Hyuna’s page boy.

“Minseok?”

Minseok simply bows at him, formal and respectful, but he mumbles something that could’ve been _I’ll tell you later_ or _please follow me prince Baekhyun_ , before he enters the portal again, waiting for Baekhyun to follow him.

Baekhyun greets Lu Han with a bow and takes a last, angry look at Chanyeol, enjoying the almost scared look on his face. Lu Han is not a dragon prince, but he’s more then three hundred years old and it’s been too long since he left the Crimson Mountain, long enough that even the prince’s words have no effects on him. Chanyeol can’t threaten him with his lineage to get out of trouble this time.

Baekhyun only regrets not being able to watch as Chanyeol gets scolded for what he did.

He follows Minseok through the corridor until Lu Han and Chanyeol are not in sight anymore, before he tackles his friend.

“What happened, Minseok? Minho said he looked for you yesterday, but he couldn’t find you anywhere. And why are you wearing the colors of the Guardian now?”

Minseok pulls miserably at the black vest. “Because I’m his assistant, apparently. Lord Lu said I have to stay with him from now on.”

Baekhyun stops and Minseok crashes against him with a soft yelp. He looks at his prince angrily but doesn’t complain - he never does, always too polite and sweet to say anything to the other kids.

“You could be the next oracle, then.”

Minseok’s eyebrows shoot upwards in a mute question.

“Well, that’s Lu Han’s duty. Protecting the oracle, right?”

“There’s already an oracle, Baekhyun.”

Baekhyun almost answers that the current oracle will most surely lose his powers in a few years, the day Baekhyun will succeed King Heechul to the Golden Throne. But then he remembers it’s a secret and he can’t say it, so he shakes his head, keeping his mouth shut. After all, if Minseok is the next oracle, he’ll find out by himself. And if Minseok really is the next oracle, wouldn’t it mean he’ll be Baekhyun’s oracle?

“That boy with red hair was a dragon, right?”

A fit of annoyance shoots through Baekhyun but he quickly hides it. “He’s the prince of the dragons, apparently.”

“And your fiancé,” concludes Minseok for him. Baekhyun doesn’t answer. At this rate, he’s not even sure that they’ll both survive the week together, let alone getting to the marriage part. Let alone living together for the rest of their lives. Well, that might even happen, but only because their lives will be very short if they get married.

“He’s an asshole,” he only says, after a while, feeling guilty and immediately checking for guards around them, ready to scold him for using such a crude word. Luckily, there are none.

“I noticed.”

Baekhyun noticed too. Since the first moment, Chanyeol has been nothing but hostile towards him. He doesn’t know the reason, the only thing he knows, and quite intimately, is the burning, exploding need to punch that conceited face, at least once. But Chanyeol is a guest of the King of the Sun and Baekhyun is the heir to the Golden Throne. Punching a guest would be... not exactly appropriated.

“We’ll talk about it later, Minseok. This is my stop!”

He points to the large, shiny staircase that leads straight to the apartments of the Radiant Princess. Minseok looks up warily, not sure if he should accompany Baekhyun inside or not, but Baekhyun beats him to it. “I’m not sure my mom’s guards would let you in, so consider your mission accomplished. You can come back to Lu Han, I think.”

“I will. My prince,” Minseok bows to excuse himself but Baekhyun takes him by surprise with a quick hug.

“Don’t disappear again, Minseok!”

The other boy’s frozen expression melts in a smile and he waves at Baekhyun before turning on his heels and disappearing in the main corridor that leads to the gardens.

Left alone, Baekhyun can only go up, following the faint sound of laughter that always resounds through the rooms of the Radiant Princess, muffled by soft carpets, colored tapestries and heavy curtains.

At the door, two beautiful girls dressed only of veils and sharp bronze daggers welcome him. “You are late My Prince, the Radiant Princess is impatient to know what happened to her favorite garden.”

Baekhyun can guess the amused smile behind the veils covering their faces. He snorts, and the shorter of the two openly laughs in his face. “Can I see my mother now?” he asks.

“Don’t mock the prince, Suji,” warns the taller one, but she’s too amused not to hurt Baekhyun’s feelings.

“But he’s so cute,” whines Suji, pulling Baekhyun’s cheek. “I’m only letting you go because you’re already late little prince, next time I’ll cuddle you properly.”  
Baekhyun runs through the door Fei is holding open for him, relieved to have finally escaped the trap that are his mother’s sworn sisters and guardians. As soon as he sets foot in the room, the faint chattering noises grows in intensity becoming almost deafening. Baekhyun is literally assaulted by a cacophony of laughs, exclamations, whines, squeals and screams so loud he has to cover his ears to keep walking in the corridors.

Only women can frequent the apartments of the princesses of Syura, the Little Court. Aristocratic ladies, princesses of the desert, wives of rich merchants, encircled by a colorful range of servants, maids, lackeys, sometimes even pretty scribe slaves from the islands of the North, the parlor of the Radiant Princess welcomes them all. Men are not exactly forbidden from entering this sacred realm, but they usually steel clear from it, following an ancient, unspoken rule. Baekhyun would gladly stay away from this place, not only because he is a man - though a miniature sized one - but mostly because all the girls of the court like to pet him, to cuddle and hug him and get a little too bold for Baekhyun’s liking, trying to steal his good luck with their soft, tattooed hands. That’s why he quickly crosses the main corridor, not stopping to look inside the single rooms, in fear of being caught.

His mother’s room is at the very end of the corridor and he sneaks inside with relief, only to regret it as he’s faced with last person he wanted to meet today. The queen of the Crimson Mountain has the same black eyes of her son Chanyeol, big and round, and the same vibrant red hair. Sitting on the lounge, her hands holding Baekhyun’s mother’s hands, she raises those eyes to look curiously at Baekhyun when he enters the room. He blushes under her scrutiny.

“I’m... I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to... interrupt.”

“Such a well-spoken boy, your child. He surely didn’t take that from you, Yong-sun.” Baekhyun’s mother giggles. “I must go now, I’m sure you two will need your quality time. Only one thing, little prince.” She leans down until she’s on Baekhyun’s same level, “I know dealing with my son might be... difficult for you right now, but please try to understand him. This is his first time being so far away from home. He’s tired, he doesn’t understand the dialects of the desert and the sun hurts him all the time. Please be patient with him.”

Caught off guard, Baekhyun simply bows politely until the princess’ guards see the guest to the door.

Yong-sun immediately turns towards Baekhyun.

“So, my child, I’ve heard dire news of my violet garden, care to tell me what happened?”

“I didn’t do it,” he simply says, almost afraid his mother won’t believe him.

“Of course you didn’t do it, my love. You don’t know how to make fire. Chanyeol does, he is a dragon, after all.”

Baekhyun blinks, taken aback. Of course the Radiant Princess already knew everything. And, knowing she’s already on his side, Baekhyun is really ready to let resentment flow out of his mouth - Chanyeol is so mean, he even tried to burn him - but he can’t. He simply can’t.

If he says it, it’ll be like admitting defeat. Baekhyun is just a kid, but he’s not stupid. One day, he will succeed Heechul and become the next king. And Baekhyun knows - and he doesn’t need anyone to tell him - that he _needs_ a strong political marriage if he wants his reign to be peaceful and prosperous. That’s how things work. King Heechul married the daughter of the chief of one of the most influential clans of the Blue Steppe. The previous king married a prince of the Bones, and the one before him a Lady-of-the-Forest. Baekhyun was promised, even before he was actually born, to the prince of the dragons of the Crimson Mountain, and he can’t let a single boy’s stubbornness prevent him from fulfilling his duty. He won’t let Chanyeol’s bad attitude stop him.

“Chanyeol did it, but I provoked him. I told him he’s too slow to play tag games with me.”

“That wasn’t nice of you, Baekhyunnie. You know it, right?”

He nods guiltily and she pets his head, gesturing for him to sit next to her. “Hye-jin and I have been friends for a long time, even before you and Chanyeol were born. You know why it’s really important that you and him get along, right?”

“I do, mother. It won’t happen again, I swear.”

“I trust you to do the right thing, my son. Remember he’s just a kid, away from home, surrounded by people he doesn’t know. He’s probably feeling really scared, don’t you think? It’s your duty to make him comfortable.”

Baekhyun pouts. “But he set fire to the garden, mom!”

She puts a finger to her lips and whispers, “Then your secret mission for tomorrow is to make sure that Chanyeol doesn’t set fire to anything, do you understand love?”

Baekhyun doesn’t want to do it. He doesn’t like Chanyeol.

“If there’s someone in this castle who can do it, it’s you, my son.”

Her words fill Baekhyun’s tiny chest with pride. Baekhyun is the heir, the future king, the future Sun, and he can do anything. Even convince that moping, sour little thing who crawled out of the Crimson Mountain to like him.

“Promise me you’ll do your best.”

He nods. “I promise, mother!”

They tie their pinkies and she gives Baekhyun another warm smile. “Now go back to the garden and apologize to him first, and if he forgives you I’ll tell Suji to bring you hot cocoa, what do you think?”

“No, Suji no, mom, please!”

~

Baekhyun wakes up again, the last words of the dream still rolling on his mouth, when the rhythmic beep of the alarm clock hammers against his head, and the Little Court fades like sand swept away by the wind.

“Suji,” he murmurs, tongue raspy against the roof of his mouth. “Fei, Hye-jin...” The names feel foreign and yet familiar on his tongue. They taste like amber and desert nights. “Lu Han, Minseok... Chan-”

“Baekhyun! I can hear the alarm clock! Get up before it’s late!”

He groans at the loud yelling, feeling a strange sense of déjà vu. He blinks a few times, trying to realize what’s wrong, until the time blinking impatiently on the digital alarm clock remind him it’s getting really late.

“Suji, Fei, Hye-jin, Lu Han, Minseok... What was the last name?” He can’t remember, but he’s sure it was important. There was a city in the desert, a palace of mosaics, of carpets and curtains to shield the room from the merciless light of the sun. A corridor full of giggling women dressed in colorful veils. He’s sure it’s not the first time he dreams of the city at the end of the desert, but he can’t quite pinpoint the details.

_What did I dream?_

“Baekhyun!”

 _Too loud,_ he wants to answer, _let me think, I’m so close._

But he’s not close, not at all. He stands up slowly, looking for his uniform. He finds his World History paper instead.

“Didn’t I submit you already?” He’s sure he’s already completed this assignment and he’s also already been scolded for half-assing it. And at the same time he’s sure he didn’t submit it and got scolded anyway, but that doesn’t make any sense. “How... strange.”

“Baekhyun, what are you-?” His mother’s words die on her lips when she sees him standing there and blinking confusedly at a piece of paper. “Are you crazy? The bus will be here in less than ten minutes and you’re still stalling?”

“Ok, ok, I get it. Calm down, Mom!”

He scratches his head and throws the paper inside his backpack. He’ll think about this later. For now he has to rush, literally jumping inside his school clothes and taking the chocolate bread from his mother on his way out. She gives a last warning glare at his messy appearance, but there’s little she can do because the bus is already at the stop - later than usual though - and Baekhyun barely avoids being splashed by all the water it moves.

It’s not raining, not yet at least - something tells Baekhyun it will rain soon though - but the leftover puddles from the last days reflect a cinereal sky cloaked in fog and humidity.  
The bus is not too crowded and Baekhyun easily finds a free seat in the back.

They’re barely out of the city when it starts to rain and Baekhyun feels like he was expecting it. The strange sense of déjà vu is back again, this time stronger than before, and Baekhyun’s ears start to whistle. It’s like a signal, an intermittent interference of white noise. It goes and comes, making Baekhyun feel strangely disoriented for a moment, disappearing suddenly only to come back again after a while.

When the bus crosses the bridge, the roar of the river mixed with the song of the heavy downpour and the rumble of the old engine of the bus is almost deafening. Baekhyun rubs the thin layer of condensation away from the glass of the window bus, trying to catch a look of the river, but the fog is too thick. It’s strange, because such a strong rain should be able to dispel the mist, but despite the wind and the water the fog is still there. It rises from the river like an army of ghosts, surrounding the entire valley, the town, the paddy fields, the hill, the graveyard and the river flowing around everything, a ring of angry water. If Baekhyun looks back he can still see the road, the bridge and the first houses of the town, but when he tries to look past the river, to catch a glimpse of the top of the skyscrapers of the neighboring city, his eyes crash against a white wall of fog. The town is surrounded by it, drowned in wet, thick white.

It’s like the rest of the world doesn’t exist. It’s only them. Baekhyun looks at the sky, at its silvery glow, the somber, stale grey of the cumulonimbus heavy with rain blending with the chalky white of the mist. The whistle in his ears grows stronger, insistent, and Baekhyun has the distinct, powerful feeling that something should happen now. He rises his eyes up at the sky and looks for red, for crimson wings. Baekhyun doesn’t blink until the end of the journey, hoping - he doesn’t even know what he’s hoping for - but nothing happens.

The mist doesn’t dissipate for the rest of the day and the rain keeps falling, turning the courtyard and the baseball field in a giant puddle.

Baekhyun naps on top of his desk, gets scolded for his half-finished World History paper - and the professor’s words leave a strange, stagnant feeling at the back of his mind - and uses his privileged desk next to the window to stare at the fog with growing fascination, watching it closing down on the hill, closer and closer to the city. Soon, it will swallow the river whole.

“Maybe Mr. Byun wants to answer this question? Mr. Byun?”

Baekhyun raises his eyes slowly. The familiar sight of the entire class staring at him hits him with terrifying clarity. This time Baekhyun he is definitely sure. He’s already heard these words yesterday. He’s already seen these expecting faces yesterday. He’s already lived this scene yesterday.

“It’s a transitive verb, obviously,” he says, with a challenging stare.

He’s already expecting the answer, but it still hits strongly when Mrs. Kim answers, “Nice try, but it was intransitive... Now, if no one else got distracted...”

He doesn’t hear the teacher saying he needs to pay attention - he doesn’t need to hear her. Blood rushes to his ears, the whistle growing stronger and stronger. Out of the window, the mist is closing down on the city.

There’s a familiar head of red hair lurking near the gates and rage swells in Baekhyun’s chest at its sight. Rage, confusion, a name he can’t remember swirling in his mind.  
He asks and receives for permission to go to the bathroom and he rushes through the alleys as soon as the door closes at its back. The corridors are eerily silent and Baekhyun already knows he won’t meet anyone on his way towards the courtyard.

The rain is just as cold as it was yesterday, the mud just as dirty. The boy with red hair, this time, is not surprised to see Baekhyun, nor he looks surprised that Baekhyun can see him. He is waiting for him.

“What is happening?” he asks. “Who the hell are you _what the fuck is happening?_ “

“Calm down, Baekhyun.”

“How do you know my name?” he almost growls. “What kind of sick game are you playing, you...” He tries to grab the collar of the boy’s shirt, but a pale hand stops him with unexpected strength. Baekhyun finds himself on the ground before he can realize what’s happened, dirty water soaking his pants and quickly seeping into his underwear. His hand burns where the boy touched him.

“Sorry,” apologizes the stranger, “you just took me by surprise.”

He lends Baekhyun a hand to help him get up again. Baekhyun fears the contact, but this time it’s not scorching hot. Only surprisingly warm. And dry.

“Why aren’t you wet? It’s fucking raining, but not on you?” he asks, feeling raindrops fall down his neck, disappearing beyond the collar of the shirt.

The boy hesitates. Baekhyun takes in his face again, and again he is almost overwhelmed by the casual, raw beauty of this stranger. He’s so used to live in this little town, to see always the same, average faces again, that this boy’s presence hits him like a slap to the face. He stands in front of him, shivering from the rain, shivering because this boy has such a dark gaze, like endless, liquid black. He looks so alien. So... not human.

“Are you sure you want to know the truth now? It’s too early, you might not be ready.”

“Everything that happened today... I knew it beforehand, because it had already happened yesterday.”

The boy’s eyes narrow. “So you noticed!” he purrs, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

“Did you think I wouldn’t notice? It was fucking creepy!”

“And what about before yesterday?” he asks, tilting his head.

“Before yesterday? What do you mean?”

“Can you honestly tell me what you did three days ago? A week ago? Do you remember your childhood here, Baekhyun?”

“I don’t understand... I just... Went to school, like every other day.”

Baekhyun thinks about it, digging in the corner of his memory for something that is not waking up, going to school, turning in his World History assignment, coming back home... He tries to think of vacations, of going to the river with his mom and catching dragonflies and plucking flowers, of riding his bicycle to school among the paddy fields, but the rain has drowned every other memory in an endless sequence of monotonous, cold mornings.

“Wait, I can’t...”

He can’t remember. He can’t remember doing anything different from getting woken up by his mom, going to school, turning the same fucking World History paper, going back home. End of the day. Every day.

He closes his eyes, holds them close so tight that faint fires start burning behind his closed eyelids.

“What is happening?” he asks, feeling so small and defeated. “What are you?”

“I am a dragon,” says the stranger with a smile, all pointy, sharp teeth and black, wild eyes. His red hair shine even under the rain and the gray sky. Baekhyun believes him. “And I’m here to save you, Baekhyun. My name is...”

“Chanyeol.”

The word escapes Baekhyun’s lips before he can stop it. “Suji, Fei, Lu Han, Minseok.” He can’t help but repeating the same names he found on his lips this same morning, like a spell. “Hye-Jin.” The boy’s eyes widen when he hears the name. “She’s your mother, right? You were the kid in my dream, the one who set fire to the violet garden. You’re Chanyeol.”

Chanyeol opens his mouth to answer, but Baekhyun can’t hear his words. The whistle in his ears is back, so strong it hurts. He closes his eyes as he falls on his knees in the cold mud, holding his head as it pounds so strongly he’s afraid it’ll break soon.

“What is happening?” he cries.

“I told you it was too soon!”

He can barely hear Chanyeol shouting as the sky breaks on their heads.

He opens his eyes, and in front of him there’s not a boy anymore, but a dragon, a red dragon. It’s the last thing Baekhyun sees. Darkness closes up on him.

_~ Fourth Turn of the Key ~_

**Syura, City of the Sun**

The storm starts at east, from the center of the desert. Baekhyun feels the pull of it before dawn, in the dryness of the air and in the soft whispers of the sand. He wakes up and pads towards the window, softly rubbing his eyes as he climbs on the edge, barely holding onto the curtain as he scans the darkness. There’s a shimmer at the horizon, flickering, angry gold. The watch post has already lit up a blue fire and, at dawn, the bells of the city will all ring to alert the population of the incoming danger.

It’s almost a useless precaution because, as if summoned by the call of the desert, many little lights start to dot the darkness of the night. Everyone can feel it in the air, just like Baekhyun did. A sandstorm is coming.

Baekhyun wakes up only a few hours later to the apocalyptic sight of a giant wall of sand closing on the city. It’s still far away, but it’s not a simple speck of dust at the end of the world anymore. It moves fast.

“It will probably hit the city tonight, tomorrow morning if we’re lucky,” is what Baekbeom says, staring at the sky with focused eyes.

“Han Geng said it will arrive here tomorrow, a few minutes after dawn,” comments Baekhyun instead and his brother frowns. “Baekhyun, you shouldn’t bother the Oracle for questions about weather!”

“I didn’t bother him!” swears Baekhyun, but his high-pitched voice betrays him. “Maybe just a little! I only went there to talk with Minseok, because Chanyeol told me he’ll set fire to my clothes if I get too close to him.”

“Who’s Minseok?” asks Baekbeom, confused, at the same time Sunyoung asks, “Wasn’t Chanyeol your fiancé or something like that?” 

Baekhyun cringes at the word _fiancé_ and conveniently ignores her question, focusing on his brother’s. “Minseok is one of my friends. Lu Han took him as his... assistant, apparently.”

“So they’ve finally found the next Oracle, I see,” comments Baekbeom, resting his hands on his wife’s shoulders. Sunyoung smiles at him but pouts at Baekhyun. “You still haven’t told me how is going with your fiancé.”

“Is he really going to become the Oracle then? He looks pretty normal to me!”

“You looked pretty normal too when you were born, Baekhyunnie. No different from me or any other prince, and yet the Oracle chose you as the next king.”

Baekhyun preens. He’s going to become the best king this city has ever had, he’s sure of it.

Sunyoung pinches his nose and pulls, hard.

“What was that for?” he whines, trying to get her to let go.

“For ignoring my question about the prince of the dragons! What’s this stuff about him trying to burn you?”

Baekhyun pouts, choosing not to answer. He’s not sure he can keep himself from insulting Chanyeol right now, and he’s promised his mother he’ll try to make it work.

However, it’s really difficult to make it work when his future husband hates everything about him and tries to burn him on sight.

“Chanyeol doesn’t like it here. He misses his mountain and he complains all the time that it’s too sunny here, that he can’t see anything, that the food is tasteless, the language is too difficult and I’m too plain and boring to be his betrothed. And if I can’t make him like me he won’t want to marry me and then there’ll be a war and it’ll be my fault and...”

He’s expecting comfort, comprehension, maybe even a hug, but Sunyoung explodes in the longest, most relieved laugh he’s ever heard. 

“Oh, Baekhyun, you’re so silly. You’re kids. No one expects you to fall in love at this age.”

“But I...” he protests, already feeling shame burning his cheeks.

Baekbeom only tries to be sympathetic but from the way he has to bite his cheek to keep himself from laughing he obviously agrees with his wife. They don’t understand, not really.

Baekhyun will be king. He has responsibilities. He has duties.

“Chanyeol is different from you, Baekhyun. He was a prince his whole life. He wasn’t chosen by an oracle, he has nothing to prove. With time he will learn that a prince can’t just complain and demand. He’ll learn about his duties as a prince too, but he’s just a kid now.”

Baekhyun was four years old when Han Geng announced his name to the court, the name of the next King of the Sun. Since then, Baekhyun’s life has been a constant struggle to show people he’s worthy of his title. But Chanyeol, he never really had to prove anything. His right to rule is written in his blood and not in the words of an Oracle.

“Besides, Baekhyun,” continues Baekbeom, “you’re not the king yet and you’re a kid too. So do me a favor: the next time this kid threatens to hurt you, show him who’s the prince of this castle.”

“It won’t happen too soon,” says Baekhyun, relieved. “I heard they were supposed to leave today, to come back to the Crimson Mountain.”

Sunyoung yawns and lazily lies down on the couch, bringing Baekbeom’s hand to where her belly has barely started to show. Baekbeom softly tickles the skin and she giggles. “I don’t know what their plans were,” she says, intertwining her and Baekbeom’s fingers, “but one thing is sure. If the sandstorm really hits tomorrow morning, they won’t be going anywhere today.”

~

This time Baekhyun wakes up on his own long before the alarm clock starts ringing. He wakes up with Chanyeol’s name and the worries of a six years old prince on his lips. This time, the dream stays with him, warm and colorful and smelling faintly of sand, salt and sunny days, something Baekhyun remembers but never got to see with these eyes. Maybe he saw it with other eyes, the golden eyes of a little radiant prince who ran on colorful mosaic tiles at midday, shedding drops of laughter and excitement with every step.

Baekhyun now has new names to add to his mental list. There’s Chanyeol and there’s Hye-jin, his mother. His friend Minseok, who may or may not be the next Oracle, the current Oracle, Han Geng and the Guardian of the Oracle, a dragon called Lu Han. There’s a brother Baekhyun wasn’t aware he had, Baekbom, and his wife Sunyoung, and maybe a little nephew. There’s Yong-sun, Baekhyun’s mother, with her wide, young smile.

Baekhyun wakes up and pads into the kitchen, listening to the sounds the house makes while everyone is asleep. The low buzz of the refrigerator, the ticking of the clocks. Soft whispers drowned in silence.

“Baekhyunnie, why are you already awake?”

He turns towards his mother like a thief caught red-handed. She turns on the light and they both squint.

“A bad dream?” she says, when he doesn’t answer. Baekhyun looks at her, takes in the figure of his mother, her pink nightgown, her caramel hair - she dyes it every two week to keep the color, one of the few luxuries she allows herself to indulge in - and her tired smile. There are wrinkles at the sides of her eyes and mouth, signs of age. She looks nothing like the woman in the dream.

“Mom, I was wondering if you ever thought about giving me a brother.”

“A brother, you say? My hands were already full with you and then your father died.”  
No brother then, but it’s not surprising. This is not the same person who was his mother in the dream. This is not Yong-sun, the Radiant Princess. This is…

“Baekhyun, are you alright? You’re so pale...”

She tries to feel his forehead, but he takes a step backwards. He looks at her face - he’s known her face for years, she’s his mother what the hell - he looks at her eyes, searching, asking silently. He doesn’t know what her name is. She’s his mother and he has no idea what her first name is.

If Baekhyun thinks of mother, only Yong-sun comes to his mind.

“I think I’m going to go... back to sleep.”

She still looks at him with a worried face - and it breaks Baekhyun’s heart, really, because he’s a good son, always been, always tried to make his mother happy and proud, but now he doesn’t even know if this person is really his mother. He doesn’t even know if this is really his life.

Chanyeol. He needs to find Chanyeol again.

“Baekhyun are you alright?”

No, he’s not. His heart is beating too fast, trying to sneak past his ribcage and run away, but Baekhyun forces a smile on his lips.

“Of course, just... You said it, a bad dream.”

A long, bad dream.

The bus has never been so late, but Baekhyun doesn’t mind the long wait, nor the rain trickling from the roots of his hair to his neck. It’s strangely soothing, just what Baekhyun needs. His heart hasn’t slowed down since the moment he talked to his mother – to the woman he believed to be his mother. Now, he’s not so sure.

Raindrops click against the asphalt like little pearls falling from the sky, draping the world in a thick pall of loud silence. Baekhyun doesn’t hear the steps, but he feels Chanyeol approaching from the way the world seems to shake in his presence, unable to adapt to the razor-sharp lines of his face, the aura of power that emanates from him. Chanyeol is a creature of myths and legends, of blood and fire, and he’s so out of place standing with Baekhyun at the bus stop in front of the grocery store, in Baekhyun’s quiet, boring neighborhood, a few steps from his house, that it looks like the whole town is trying to deny his presence.

Chanyeol extends a hand over Baekhyun’s head, preventing rain from falling over Baekhyun’s head. It vaporizes before it can touch Chanyeol’s skin with a lightly sizzling sound.

“Stop doing that, someone will see you!”

Chanyeol chuckles. “Who? The imaginary inhabitants of this imaginary city? Are you ready to believe me now or do you need more proof?”

Baekhyun ignores him. “What happened yesterday? Why did you disappear?”

“I don’t think I can tell you. The system would collapse again, and you’re not ready.”

“Try me.”

Chanyeol doesn’t answer, but he looks at Baekhyun, curls a short strand of dark hair around his fingers. “Now that I look at you, you really are different. You used to have golden hair.”

Baekhyun flinches at the sudden contact and even more at the strange words.

“You mean in the dream?”

Chanyeol pulls on the strand playfully. “Why are you so sure that’s the dream? Maybe this is the dream, and the other one is reality.”

“If this was a dream you pulling on my hair wouldn’t hurt so much, don’t you think?”

“Let’s walk,” says Chanyeol, putting a finger on Baekhyun’s mouth when he tries to complain. “The bus won’t come, Baekhyun. It didn’t leave the station this morning. Come on,” he insists.

Walking next to Chanyeol is nice and at the same time quite intimidating. Baekhyun is not sure Chanyeol does it on purpose, he’s just really tall and commanding and he looks like he’d be able to set Baekhyun on fire simply looking at him too intensely. They walk the same route the bus travels every day. The fog at the river banks and on the bridge that connects the town with the rest of the region is thicker than usual. Baekhyun can’t see the water of the river and the bridge looks suspended into the void, disappearing in a white cloud of humidity. Chanyeol pulls him by his forearm when he stops to look. 

“Don’t linger in front of the mist,” he only says, “it’s dangerous.” Other than that, they don’t talk. Chanyeol whistles and Baekhyun gather the courage to ask Chanyeol what he knows about the dream and if he really is a dragon.

“I know you want to ask me a lot of questions, but I’m sure you wouldn’t believe my truths,” says Chanyeol, not unaware of Baekhyun’s squirming and silent wondering, “so I’ll show you.”

He stops. They’re at the top of the hill, only a few minutes from the school. The grass looks grey under the clouded dark sky. Chanyeol points towards a little clearing, one of those sightseeing spots usually popular with young couple. From there, they’ll get a full view of the whole city.

“What will you show me?” asks Baekhyun, impatient. “And how can you know I won’t believe you at all?”

Chanyeol’s left eyebrow shots upwards. “I’m a dragon prince and you’re the future king of Syura, the City of the Sun. You were locked in this world when a dark tyrant took over your city but I’ve come here to save you because you’re the only one who can defeat him.”

Baekhyun’s jaw falls. Then he purposefully, harshly shoves Chanyeol away. “Do you think you’re funny? Do you find messing with me amusing?”

Chanyeol laughs in his face, cold and cruel, but doesn’t allow Baekhyun to push him a second time. He grabs his wrist in an iron hold, using his other hand to grip Baekhyun’s nape and force him to look down.

The tiny town stretches, wet and gray under the falling rain, surrounded by a thick ring of white mist. “What is that? Why does it look like… the mist is closing on the city?”

“Because that’s exactly what is happening, Baekhyun. Look there,” he says, pointing towards the residential zone of the city, where the bus station is. “I told you the bus wouldn’t have come today and you know why? Because the bus station is no more. The mist ate it.”

“The mist can’t… eat something.”

Chanyeol grabs Baekhyun’s shoulder, spinning the boy until he’d facing him. “This world is running on borrowed time and it won’t last for long. Don’t go into the mist Baekhyun, not even I can save you if you lose yourself in the void.”

Baekhyun wants to shove Chanyeol away again and tell him he sounds crazy, but something stops him. Behind Chanyeol he can see the gates of the school hanging open on the empty courtyard. Behind them there’s only the baseball field, its chalk lines crooked by the rain and barely visible. Nothing else. Just an ominous white wall of fog, so thick it looks almost solid, swirling lazily where once was Baekhyun’s high school.

“Where’s the school?” he asks, breathless. “Where’s my high school, Chanyeol?”

He tries to walk towards the blank space that has taken the school’s place, but Chanyeol stops him, caging him in his arms. “Don’t!” he shouts. “I told you, no going into the void, Baekhyun.”

“But… the school…”

The world sways, and they both almost fall. He hears Chanyeol saying something nasty in an unknown language, all growls and hisses, before the other boy takes Baekhyun’s hand.

“It’s happening again, Baekhyun. The system is collapsing, like yesterday.”

“Why?”

“Because of you. You’re the key. Damn, it seems like this is too much for you to take all at once. I have to go, I can’t stay here. My presence would upset this world even more and it’s already out of control.”

The sky rumbles and cracks. Baekhyun recognizes the signs from the day before. Soon enough, he’ll lose consciousness and he’ll wake up tomorrow in his bed after another strange dream that could be more than just a dream. It’s too soon, there are still a lot of things he wants to ask Chanyeol.

“Don’t go,” he begs. “I don’t understand.”

“There’s no time. Remember, Baekhyun, don’t walk into the mist.”

This time, when the sky falls over them, Baekhyun is expecting it. He struggles to keep his eyes open as Chanyeol turns into a scarlet dragon in a shower of iridescent sparkles and flies towards the crumpling sky. Unconsciousness, when it comes, is heavy and entrancing, and it sounds just like the lullaby of a musical box.

_~ Fifth Turn of the Key ~_

**Syura, City of the Sun**

They say a sand storm is the result of a war among the spirits of the dead buried under the sand in the most remote times, long before Syura was built and Baekhyun’s family ruled at the end of the desert. It is the kind of story that is better told at night, around the dim light of a slowly dying fire pit, the kind of story that Syura’s children love the most.

In the stories, demons rise from under the sand, decrepit soldiers who come back to fight their lost war at Syura’s door. Since he was a toddler, Baekhyun has always wanted to leave the city at night and walk into the storm to see whether the legends are true, but it’s impossible. Syura closes all its doors for the passage of a sandstorm. Not only the gates of the city, the titanic, unbreakable bronze portals that not even the armies of Kalahari were able to break. Every single door in the whole city is locked. Little houses and big mansions, warehouse and stores, temples and graveyards, even the doors of the palace are shut down by golden clad guards. From the balcony of his room at the palace, Baekhyun can see a multitude of people, tiny like miniature toys, dismantling the bazaar, hindered by the strong wind coming from east. The sky is an impression of lead gray clouds and reddish sand molding castle and towers, spires and steeples swaying with the wind, so thick they look almost solid, but only for a moment, because a heartbeat later they’ve already turned into hydras with hundred heads, desert wyverns, basilisks with amber scales hit by the last rays of the sunset.

“Your Highness, we must barricade all the windows.”

Baekhyun allows the servants to lead him inside, blocking the oriels with jalousies and iron grates, heavy wooden blinds and velvet drapes in the corners to keep the sand from filtering from the smallest opening.

The sand is not the only problem. When a sandstorm is as strong and violent as this one promises to be, it can last for days, haunting the sky and filtering even the light of the sun. Not even torches or fire can light the darkness that engulfs the city. It’s the perfect occasion for criminals, rogues and thieves, bandits, slave merchants. That’s why the two guards usually camping outside Baekhyun’s door have become four guards. And they don’t really look comfortable with letting him wander around the palace.

“Where are you going, Your Highness?”

“Just a walk,” he answers, trying to look as innocent as possible.

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea, Your Highness.”

“Let me be the judge of that,” he says, using a phrase he’s heard his brother say a lot of times when a guard tried to stop him during his night outings, when he was still courting Sunyoung. Except Baekbeom was fifteen and Baekhyun is six years old, so the effect is a little different. The guards only look at him with a worried frown.

“I’m afraid I can’t let that happen, Your Highness. You see, if something were to happen to you, King Heechul would have my head on a peak before the sandstorm hits the city.”

Baekhyun pouts.

“Oh, come on, I want to watch the sandstorm from the South Tower. Please.”

“Don’t worry, I can take him.”

All the guards turn towards the main corridor, to see a rather grumpy Lu Han stalking towards them. They all bow for his high rank but he stops them. “No formalities, please.” He turns towards Baekhyun. “I was sure you were going to sneak out to see the sandstorm. You’re lucky tonight. I promised Minseok to take him and I even got to convince Chanyeol, so you’re welcome to join us.”

Baekhyun’s childish joy dies quickly as soon as he hears Chanyeol’s name. “Why does he have to come? Chanyeol hates the desert, what interest does he have in sandstorms?”

“None,” answers Lu Han, “but his mother begged me to take him with us, so with us he shall come. Try to be civil towards him.”

Baekhyun doubts Chanyeol will try to do the same, but he doesn’t really care.

“Can we go?”

Lu Han lights a fire and leads the way for the three children. Baekhyun, the little sunkissed prince with golden hair and golden eyes. Minseok, the attendant, silent and shy like a desert fox. Chanyeol, the dragon, who looks like the portrait of mortification. Baekhyun has been pretending to ignore him since he joined Lu Han’s expedition party, but it’s difficult to pretend he didn’t see his red, swollen eyes or hear his constant sniffling noises.

Baekhyun still can’t believe Lu Han convinced Chanyeol to come and see the sandstorm, considering that the sandstorm is the first reason of Chanyeol’s misery, being engaged to Baekhyun obviously being the second. The delegation of the Crimson Mountain should have left a few hours ago, but their departure was postponed. They obviously wouldn’t have gone far in the middle of the sandstorm. Chanyeol sobs again in the back of his throat, trying to swallow the sadness and the humiliation of showing it to someone else. He doesn’t quite succeed. He looks pitiful and small and for a moment Baekhyun wishes he was able to comfort him, but then he remembers that Chanyeol is sad because he hates Syura and Baekhyun and every ounce of pity he feels for the other boy disappears.

The castles is a labyrinth of gold and blue. The mosaic tiles on the walks, polished and glistening like minute colorful mirrors, capture the dim light of the blue fires lit at the corners only to reflect it from wall to wall in an infinite game of looking glasses. Baekhyun stops to wave his hands in front of them, playing with the shadows to create the shapes of ominous monsters.

“Baekhyunnie, don’t fall behind!”

Finally, Lu Han opens the door to a narrow staircase. Baekhyun knows it takes to the old s tower, a solid, old structure that was abandoned a couple of months ago due to a water infiltration problem in the roof. When they finally reach the top, they find the main room invaded by tools left by the artisans working at the renovation project. It smells of bricks and lime, of mold eating old paper and dried ink.

“We’re only staying for a few minutes,” warns Lu Han. “And you’re not allowed to touch anything.”

“Is this tower safe?” asks Minseok in a thin voice, almost afraid to speak to the Guardian despite having spent the last few days running at his heels. Lu Han laughs. “A sandstorm won’t tear it down, if that’s what you’re worried about, but I still don’t want to be here when the first waves of sand will hit the city.”

What Lu Han is not saying is that he can’t stay here with them the whole night. As Guardian of the Oracle, his place is next to the Oracle.

“But shouldn’t that be locked like the rest of the palace windows?” asks Minseok again, impatient, pointing towards the rather large opening facing East. There is no glass here, just the sky and the roar of the sand running on the wings of the wind towards Syura.

Lu Han almost pats his head comfortingly. His hand lingers for a moment on Minseok’s hair, then he points towards the edges of the window. “This window cannot be shut close. Look, it’s too big. There’s a spell around it. It will keep the sand away better than any wooden door would.”

“Can I touch the spell?” Baekhyun exclaims. He pushes an old chair towards the balcony and excitedly climbs over it, leaning out of the window with extended hands. Lu Han pulls him back. “Careful, Baekhyun.”

“But I can’t see anything,” he whines. Lu Han holds his hand as he stands up on the chair to watch outside, helping Chanyeol to do the same on the other chair.

The last glints of sunset have vanished, but the colossal wave of sand that rides the wind from east is visible even in the darkness. On its crests, the feeble light of the moon embroiders tears of pearly white, like the sprinkles of foam on top of marine waves.

Baekhyun lets out a dreamy sigh, swallowed by the howls of the wind.

“Listen, listen!” he exclaims. “If we listen carefully we can hear the war chants of the dead.”

“What a big load of bullshit,” mutters Chanyeol.

“Your Highness, who taught you that kind of word?”

Chanyeol crosses his arms and stares back at Lu Han. “A merchant in the desert taught me and I will say it as many times as I want. Bullshit bullshit bull-”

“Yeah, keep saying it, you’re full of bullshit yourself,” retorts Baekhyun.

“Enough, both of you.” Lu Han’s voice, honed like a sword, puts an end to the debate. “Baekhyun, you’re the Crown Prince. This foul language is beneath you. Prince Chanyeol, you will behave in my presence. Minseok, your turn now.”

Baekhyun reluctantly leaves the balcony with a last, longing glance at the sand blast. He can almost see it bluster with the frenzy of the battle.

“Can’t I stay a little more? Who knows when we’ll get to see another sandstorm…”

“No, Baekhyun, you’re going to get down now and think about the bad words you said tonight. And then you’re both going to apologize to each other or your mothers will hear about it tomorrow.”

Both boys pale. Chanyeol kicks an empty box and Baekhyun answers with a guilty nod, but Lu Han has already turned to show Minseok the rapidly advancing storm.

“Can you see it, Minseok? Look, that’s...”

“Are you happy?” hisses Baekhyun, looking at Chanyeol’s angry face. “Now we’ll both get in trouble and it’s your fault.”

Chanyeol snarls at him. “Say it again and I’ll burn your face.”

“Then you’ll have an ugly husband for the rest of your life.”

“You’re already ugly anyway, maybe the fire will make you look better.”

Baekhyun’s mouth trembles with the need to hit and to hurt. “You’re the worst prince I’ve ever met, you can’t even turn into a dragon.”

First comes the hurt, then the rage. It spreads in Chanyeol’s eyes like vermilion ink, painting them red like his hair. “I hate you,” he says, “I hate the sun, I hate the desert and I hate this place, but I hate you the most, Baekhyun, and I will never, ever marry you.”

He turns on his heels and storms away. Baekhyun does nothing to stop him. He stands frozen in shock, realizing that, for the first time since he met him, Chanyeol has called him by his first name. And he’s managed to make it sound like an insult.

He runs after him, skipping steps in the stairs and almost falling in his haste to reach Chanyeol. He manages to catch him before he can open the door at the end of the stairs, and he slams against his back, unable to stop in time. They fall together in an awkward heap of young limbs and tight fist and Chanyeol snarls and tries to hurt him with his fire, but Baekhyun is quick to extract himself from his fiancé’s hold and stand, breathless.

“I don’t care if you hate me,” he says, “I don’t even know why you hate me. You are so stupid and mean, but I don’t care. You can burn my face if you want, but you won’t get rid of me, Chanyeol of the Crimson Mountain, I swear it on the Golden Throne.”

“We will see.”  
Chanyeol spits the words in his face and Baekhyun wants to hit him. He almost hits him, but Chanyeol is up on his feet and pushing him away before he can do anything, slamming the door behind his back and running away in the darkness of the palace.

~

Baekhyun wakes up to a world suffused in white mist and grey rain.

The World History paper mocks him, winking cruelly from the table. The boy picks it up, stares at the words. The calligraphy is familiar, but none of the things written inside seem to make sense. He wrote them, did he? But maybe he didn’t. Maybe none of this is real. Baekhyun extends his hand out of the window, feeling the cold of the early morning. It doesn’t feel right, but it doesn’t feel unreal either.

The fog has closed on the town during the night, a dome of heavy white falling on the ground like a cape, covering everything. It already ate the paddy fields and the river and now Baekhyun has to struggle to see the streets under his house, hidden behind a veil of fog. It’s thin and impalpable around Baekhyun’s fingers, thick and heavy at the edge of his vision, where the buildings are slowly sinking into sticky mist, leaving only blank, empty space in their place. There are no cars, no people, even the sound of the rain has disappeared, choked by the emptiness around him. If he squints hard enough, he can see hints of doors, of courtyards, of shop windows. It’s the only proof that the town still exists and he’s not living in the middle of nowhere.

I have to leave. I have to leave before it eats everything, me included. And there’s only one way to leave.

The house is full of that loud silence that can only be heard in the morning, made of the shuffling of clothes, hastily closed drawers and Baekhyun’s hurried steps a moment before he leaves to go to school. He puts a hand on the door and looks behind for a moment, to the messy foyer and the dark corridor. He takes in the smell of his house, homemade food and the scent of lemon of the cleaning detergent. His mother’s favorite perfume still permeates the hall, where she hangs her coats. The light in her room is on and Baekhyun wants to call her, to tell her he’s going - she always comes at the door and says bye darling to him before he leaves, brandishing a packet of chocolate bread like a weapon and sending her son one of those glances that are both worried and loving at once.

“Mom,” he calls, but the word tastes sour in his mouth, like a lie. “Mom!” he calls again.

“What is it, dear?” she shouts from the other room. She doesn’t come to greet him and Baekhyun is grateful for it. Yesterday he forgot about her name, today he can barely remember her face and he’s afraid to see a stranger staring at him with affectionate eyes.

“It’s raining outside,” he says, gesturing towards the window. It’s not only raining, it’s pouring.

“It always rains in this season, Baekhyun.”

“It always rains, not only during this season.”

“You’ll be late for school, Baekhyun.”

“The school has disappeared, mom. The town is disappearing too. We have to leave!”  
There’s a long, excruciating moment of silence and Baekhyun closes his eyes, wondering what will happen now.

“You’ll be late for school, Baekhyun.”

“You’ve already said it, mom. We have to leave, we have to…”

He opens the door of her room, not caring what he sees or what he finds, but the room is empty.

She was here, just a moment ago, she was… here.

He looks for her in all the rooms, like a lost puppy, but the house is empty. Baekhyun almost falls on his knees. He’s alone.

His heart misses a beat when he closes the door behind himself and the walls of this house, his tiny little house, collapse inside his heart, crumbling around the memories of the woman who was his mother. He’s not going to see her again, he knows. He will never come back to this house.

The world outside breathes slowly, choking on its own blood like a dying animal. Only there’s not blood falling on Baekhyun, running down the back of his neck, but rain. It drenches his coat, trickles down his umbrella, it’s everywhere. Maybe the world is not dying, maybe it’s crying. Maybe it’s both. Baekhyun would cry together with this world but he feels too cold and empty even to do that.

In the streets, nothing moves. Baekhyun walks until the seconds stretch into minutes, falling like drops of water from the sky. Space has lost its meaning in the time between today and yesterday, but time has lost its meaning a long time before, considering that there has never been a today and a yesterday, just one long déjà vu, and it scares Baekhyun that he doesn’t even know for how long he’s lived this lie.

Somewhere in this quickly vanishing town, Chanyeol is waiting for him. Chanyeol, with his black, fiery eyes and his scarlet hair, so strong and vibrant and sharp that he can almost tear the fabric of this reality apart just by being here. And maybe it’s what he did. Chanyeol has all the answers, but Baekhyun doesn’t know if he needs Chanyeol’s answers. In his dreams, Chanyeol hated him with a burning intensity that scares Baekhyun.

Baekhyun shakes his head. He can’t trust Chanyeol to save him. He must leave the city by himself and there’s only one way to do that. The river that surrounds the city has already been eaten by the fog, but yesterday the bridge was still standing and if Baekhyun is lucky it still is. It’s the only link between the town and the rest of the world and the only way to overcome the obstacle of the moody and whimsical river that circles the hill and the town like a dirty, grey ring.

Baekhyun is scared, like he’s never been scared in his life, walking in a city of ghosts, feeling like a ghost himself. He never stops, following the street until the end of the town in an eerie silence until he sees the riverbanks. The sound of the water sloshing furiously against the dams is muffled, the river invisible behind the fog.

The bridge looks old and tired. Time and the passage of people have blunted the stones, evening their irregularities, making it slippery and dangerous during the winter. Baekhyun can only see the first half of it. The rest dives in the mist and disappears there. To where, Baekhyun has no idea, but it could simply be nowhere.

_Are you afraid, Byun Baekhyun?_

Yes, he is afraid. Two days ago he was able to see the woods beyond the river, and the mountains shimmering with snow at the horizon. Then the horizon disappeared, followed by the woods, by the river, by the school and now the town. Eaten, deleted. Just gone. Like Baekhyun’s memories, the name of his classmates, the summers he spent with his mother. Yesterday morning he couldn’t remember her name, now he struggles to picture her face in his mind. And she’s gone, vanished in their own house Maybe this bridge is like her, an illusion only waiting to crumble under his feet. _But it must go somewhere,_ Baekhyun repeats stubbornly, to convince himself.

It’s a bet, just a bet, a gamble on a grey bridge suspended on a white sea under a black sky. And an entire life of lies built around Baekhyun like a cage, keeping him leashed on this tiny little town of ghost. Chanyeol’s warning, his plea to never go towards the mist, spins in Baekhyun’s mind. He looks at the way arch of the bridge disappears, lost in the fog. He’s doing exactly what Chanyeol asked him not to do. But he can’t really trust Chanyeol. The boy lied to him. Never told him the truth. This is the only exit. This must be the only exit.

Baekhyun’s Adam’s apple bobs when he swallows. He can taste his own fear and he bites it, but it only feels like his own blood. Every nerve in him is screaming, warning him against the unknown. _What if Chanyeol was right? What if this place is just collapsing and there’s nothing out there? What if you’re not crazy and this has never existed? What if…_

Baekhyun closes his eyes and takes one step forward.

He’s almost at the middle of the bridge when he realizes how terrible of an idea it’s been, when his foot slips on the slippery stone and the entire structure begins to shake. The bridge wavers. It’s solid, then it’s not, then it is again. It’s with growing anxiety that he sees that the railings has disappeared already and soon the stoned arch will make the same end. He turns on his heels and starts to run, but the few steps he’s walked in less than a minute now seem miles long.

_No no no no!_

Baekhyun tries. He runs as fast as he can, but the bridge simply flutters, sways like a branch in the wind and Baekhyun’s eyes widen in an ominous foreboding. Then, abruptly, the old stone bridge disappears and Baekhyun falls down, sinking in a white, cold cloud.

The fall is brief. From above, the fog looked endless, as if someone could fall for centuries in it, lost in blinding white, wet loneliness. In reality, Baekhyun only falls for enough time to feel his heart leap in his throat, before he impacts harshly against something. Raging, screaming pain stabs his abdomen, sharply cutting his breath intake. His mind short-circuits for the little time it takes for his body to bounce and roll down a scaly surface, then he’s falling again. Only this time something catches him before he can even scream, and then he’s flying through the mist, trapped in giant, red talons.  
The flight lasts even less than the fall itself and Baekhyun slams down, this time on the wet ground. When he opens his mouth to breathe he tastes mud, grass and melted frost.  
His vision is hazy, but even with the rain, the fog and the storm howling in Baekhyun’s head and clouding his vision, the dragon is too big for Baekhyun to miss it. It looms over Baekhyun, the giant head alone almost bigger than all of him, the long, scaly tail swinging the hair and chasing away the mist. The skin of the creature shimmers and burns crimson, turning the rain in invisible smoke before he can trickle down the lucid scales. When the dragon opens its mouth, giant sharp teeth greet Baekhyun, but it’s not fear of the dragon’s jaws that keeps him pinned to the ground, nor the fire simmering in the creature’s belly. It’s the abyss pouring on Baekhyun from its eyes, alien and absolute, reverberating like endless, liquid black.

“Chanyeol.”

The dragon disappears in front of Baekhyun’s eyes, burning away in a myriad of shiny little sparkles, consumed by magic until the only thing that remains of it are the crimson color in a tall boy’s hair and a pair of black, raw eyes.

The world stops spinning, the fog stops advancing. It doesn’t matter if half of Baekhyun’s world has disappeared and the other half is going to disappear soon, it doesn’t matter if everything is falling apart and this plot of land in front of the fallen bridge is the only island of reality still standing. For a moment, Baekhyun looks at Chanyeol and realizes that, no matter what the other boy will decide to tell him, Baekhyun will believe him.

Chanyeol frowns as he stalks towards Baekhyun, his eyebrows drawing a strong curve of disapproval on his impossibly handsome face. “Did you have fun trying to jump in the void?”

“It was awesome,” mutters Baekhyun, feeling the ache in his chest when he talks.

“You’re lucky I managed to catch you in time.”

“What would’ve happened if you hadn’t?”

Chanyeol looks away. “I don’t know. The spell is burning out faster than I expected. Especially now that you’ve started to acknowledge the truth.”

Baekhyun hesitates, not because he doesn’t know what to say, but because there are too many questions crowding his mind.

“The truth... What is the truth? I have no idea. I only know that everything I’ve ever known has disappeared and the only thing I have is a couple of messy dreams.” He looks at the ground, at his own dirty hands. He looks at the white hole that used to be his life. “Who am I?”

“You are Baekhyun, Crown Prince of Syura, Heir to the Throne of the Sun.” Chanyeol extends his hand to Baekhyun, an offer of help. Its touch burns Baekhyun when he accepts it, like a brand, like a seal.

“And you’re Chanyeol, prince of the dragons of the Crimson Mountain.”

“You remember.” A statement, not a question.

“Only bits. You were the grumpiest six year old baby prince I’ve ever seen. Did we get married, in the end?”

Baekhyun has never seen Chanyeol smile in his dreams so he can’t compare it, but when _this_ Chanyeol smiles it’s sharp and lethal, the kind of smile that could cut a man’s heart in two. He smiles as if this is the closing line of a joke Baekhyun can’t understand.

“Did we? You tell me, when you remember.”

The ground grumbles and Chanyeol takes Baekhyun’s hand again. “Come on, we have to go.”

“Where?”

“We have to get out of here. This place is going to disappear soon.”

Baekhyun lets Chanyeol drag him inside the fog, following the path that leads to the top of the hill.

“Will the hill be safe?”

“No,” answers Chanyeol curtly. “This world was made of lies and the more you realize it’s a lie the faster it’ll disappear. But there’s a secret door, the same I used to come here. We need to reach it. Come on!”

Baekhyun walks faster, but his legs are not as long as Chanyeol’s and his lungs hurt.

“Slow down!”

“There’s no time!”

The hill feels steeper than Baekhyun remembers, its sweet slopes now sharp and rough. The mud slows him down but Chanyeol’s pulls is relentless. Baekhyun wants to break free but he’s afraid that, if he lets Chanyeol go, he will lose him, remaining alone in the mist.

“Why am I here?” he asks, with the little breath he can spare.

Chanyeol doesn’t look at him as he answers.

“Something happened ten years ago. Something no one could’ve expected. Something terrible. The royal family of Syura was exterminated and now an Emperor sits on the Golden Throne. He found a way to control the dragons and together they’re keeping the land in the darkness, and...”

“...And the dragons are stronger in the darkness,” completes Baekhyun for him. “The royal family of Syura is... my family?”

“I am sorry, Baekhyun.”

Baekhyun bites his lips and looks for an appropriate answer. He doesn’t feel sorry. He feels... empty. He has vague memories of people from another world and vague memories from people of this world. “I can’t even remember them,” he only says in the end, hating himself for the way his voice is sounding so small, so tiny and lost.

“You lost your memories when...” Chanyeol hesitates, “You lost all your memories when you were trapped here.”

“And where is here? Why was I trapped here?”

“This is a prison. Actually, we’re inside your mother’s musical box, she brought it with herself when she left the Bones. You can’t remember, but she spent hours listening to the songs of her childhood, songs of mist and winter. She probably used it because both your and her magic were linked to it, maybe she thought it would’ve been easier to subdue your memories like that.”

“Why? Was I a criminal?”

“No,” says Chanyeol. “Though this is a spell used for the confinement of criminals, it was not used to punish you but to protect you. The Emperor wanted you dead and your mother charmed the musical box to hide and protect you from his rage. In some ways you could say that this world was her last will. She weaved a brand new world, a little corner of the universe just for you, to keep you safe.”

Baekhyun has little memories of his real mother. In his dreams, she looked too young and cheerful, best suited to golden fields and laughter than to the golden halls of the palace. She is a stranger who gave her life to protect him and Baekhyun can barely remember her voice. But there other things he remembers. In this world, his mother was a thin, loud woman with badly dyed hair and a penchant for stuffing chocolate bread in Baekhyun’s backpack and tying the knot of his scarf tight during the coldest days. Baekhyun remembers her strong perfume and the coldness of her hands, their slight scent of spices when she caressed his face after she had made dinner, garlic, onion, carry and sometimes chocolate. The memories are fading, just like the rest, and Baekhyun knows it’s not a great loss, they weren’t real anyway, but he still misses them acutely because they were the only ones he had.

 _She wasn’t my real mother, but if this dream was made by her, then my mom in this world was created by her too._ It’s, at least, a reassuring thought. He doesn’t know how much his mother decided when she casted the spell, but he can find comfort in the thought that, knowing she couldn’t be with him, she created another guardian figure to support and protect him.

“Are you alright?” asks Chanyeol, probably noticing Baekhyun’s inner turmoil. The only answer Baekhyun wants to give him is a hysterical laugh.

“What do you think? We’re imprisoned inside a magical box.”

He doesn’t bother to hide the exasperation from his voice. He wants this to be a dream, he desperately wishes for it to be a dream. He wants to wake up and go back to his boring life, his boring mother, his boring little town. He wants to stop running because his chest hurts, or at least he wants to run in the opposite direction and forget about Chanyeol, about dragons and cities shimmering among the sands of the desert, but unfortunately there’s nowhere to go. The fog has swallowed everything and if he slows down he’ll end up trapped in a cage of smoke and rain forever.

“How does it work?” he reluctantly ask. “How can we be trapped inside a box? You said I was inside here for ten years, so why didn’t I realize it sooner?”

“I am not exactly trapped, more like an uninvited guest, but you are for sure. The musical box is not the prison, the spell that was casted on it was what kept you here all this time, always reliving the same day. Every night for the last ten years, the spell ate your memories of the past day and used them to gain power and renew itself. That way, you couldn’t realize something was wrong. My arrival here awoke memories that had been long asleep in you, memories so strong that not even this powerful spell could contain them.”

“You mean,” he says, interrupting Chanyeol’s explanation, “that this,” he gestures towards the missing world around them, “is your fault?”

Chanyeol snorts. “Oh no, Baekhyunnie.” It’s painful, but the way he says it is so natural, so full of sickening familiarity, that even if Baekhyun wants to reject his words and mark them as untrue, he has to believe him. There’s no way someone can fake this kind of brash intimacy.

“You did this,” continues Chanyeol. “You started to notice, you started to gain power on the spell. That day at the school you attacked me thinking I was destroying your world, but it wasn’t true. The spell was linked to you and you were the only one who could’ve destroyed it. You’re the key.”

The key. Something else resurfaces, like a lost relic unveiled by the wind in the middle of the desert.

“You,” he says. “It was you. I was going home and I heard a crack, like someone was-”  
“-Trying to force their way inside? Yes, it was me. When I found the musical box, I knew I had to get inside to help you break the spell.”

“I had forgotten about it. Why did I forget?”

“I told you, the spell. It was supposed to eat your memories after every day. The only thing you would remember at morning was the lie of your life here.” He stops abruptly and Baekhyun slams against his back. Chanyeol doesn’t even budge. “We’re here.”

Yesterday the gates of the school hung open on the empty courtyard. The school had disappeared but the baseball field was still there, its chalk lines crooked by the rain but still barely visible. Today, nothing is left on the top of the hill. Only an empty clearing, and white, white mist.

“Where’s the door?” asks Baekhyun.

Chanyeol points upwards. The air is cleaner up here, less foggy, more rarefied. Up in the sky, the clouds have started to scatter. Baekhyun pales. There’s something behind the storm. _A fissure in the sky, behind the clouds, like a badly stitched scar that barely stopped bleeding._

His voice is thin and weak as a single silk thread when he asks, “That’s your door?”

“That’s _our_ door, Baekhyun.”

“And how am I supposed to open it? I’m not a key.”

“You already did.”

The firmament teeters under the weight of his words, as the cracks widen, growing like branches of poison of ivy. The sky is falling, crumbling on their heads while the ground disappears in puffs of hazy smoke. Or maybe it’s opening, like a treasure chest.

Chanyeol takes Baekhyun’s hand, not roughly like before. He cradles it like he would hold a flower, to protect it from the wind without crushing it. It’s gentle and careful, but Chanyeol’s hand is scorching hot and if Baekhyun were a flower he would’ve already withered in his hold. But what a way to leave it would be... Chanyeol is suddenly close, so close, leaning onto Baekhyun, fiery hot and deadly serious.

“Baekhyunnie, do you trust me?”

Baekhyun doesn’t want to trust Chanyeol. He has no reason to do so, except for the burning fever that runs through his body every time Chanyeol touches him, except for the foolish, suicidal instinct to do whatever Chanyeol asks him to do. His mind says no, his memories are blank, but his body would follow Chanyeol into the flames of one hundred worlds if only Chanyeol were to ask.

“What will happen if I do?”

“If you trust me, I will save you. I will take you to the real world, to Syura, to defeat the impostor and take back your throne. And I will stay with you. I will stay with you until the end, Baekhyun. Until you remember everything. Do you trust me, Baekhyun?”

“What will happen if I don’t?”

Chanyeol’s hand on the side of Baekhyun’s face hurts. It’s the faintest caress, but Baekhyun he’s sure he’ll find the burn trails of Chanyeol’s fingertips on his jaw, the side of his neck, under his chin, from the way Chanyeol tilts his face upwards, angling it just right to kiss an order on his lips.

“Trust me, Baekhyunnie.” His lips trails past his lips, to Baekhyun’s neck. “Let’s go home.”

“Let’s go home.”

_~ Sixth Turn of the Key ~_

**Syura, City of the Sun**

Baekhyun wakes up to the roar of the storm clashing against the walls of the palace, scratching at the golden coat of the vaults, bashing the window with heavy sand whips until the stones tremble under its rage. The air tastes like dust and thunder, static, vibrant with power.

Baekhyun also wakes up to the worried whispers of the guards outside his door, barely audible under the song of the storm, and to someone entering to check if he’s already awake. He hides his face in the pillow, feigning sleep, until the door closes, but in that brief moment he recognizes Lu Han’s voice outside the door.

“Are you sure you didn’t see him?”

“No, Lord Lu. But if the doors were closed...”

“I know, I know, he should still be inside the palace, but no one saw him leaving his room.”

Shuffling, one of the guards clears his voice. “Do you think he would come here to see Prince Baekhyun?”

“It’s a possibility. Baekhyun is the only friend he has in this palace, after all.” A sigh. “I have already alerted all the guards. If you see him, you have to report immediately to me.”

“Do you think he’s dangerous?”

“He’s a child, but he’s also a dragon. Small and untrained, but still a dragon. He could be dangerous if he wanted to. But more than everything else, he is a prince and he was our guest. If something were to happen to him during his stay here nothing, not even the Radiant Princess’ friendship with the queen of the dragons, would be able to spare us from the wrath of his mother.”

Greetings, footsteps. Baekhyun turns on his back and opens his eyes, staring at the empty hurricane lanterns. Stupid Chanyeol, where did you go?

He tosses and turns on his bed, only stilling when one of the guards opens the door to check on him again. When the door closes and the thin blade of blue light disappears, Baekhyun kicks the covers away and, as slowly as he can, he fills them with pillows, creating a lump that looks strangely like him when he sleeps, curled up and cocooned in warmth. He throws a tunic over his sleeping gown and wears soft silk slippers, not really warm but extremely silent on the wooden floor of the mezzanine. 

Baekhyun learnt to sneak out of his room unheard more or less when he learned how to walk, but he never needed to use this special ability until when the Oracle announced him as the Heir to the Golden Throne, the future king of Syura. Before that moment, Baekhyun was simply one of the princes of the royal family running through endless corridors with his cousins and the other children of the palace, rolling in the dirt with servants, pages and messenger boys, hair a mess, breathless and with the faintest kiss of rose on his tanned skin. After the announcement, suddenly the palace he knew, the shining playground he had grown to love, had become a nest of spies. Every maid, every guard, every adult passing by had two faces: one to smile at Baekhyun, to call him pretty, to ruffle his hair and tell him they foresaw great things in his future, and another, a secret face, the one they used to tell Baekhyun’s parents and King Heechul of Baekhyun’s every move.

Baekhyun had to learn to count the ears in the room before he opened his mouth, to tiptoe his way around distracted guards and to hide his scratched knees around long vests when he came back from a rough session of tag game with the children of the palace.

This is why he is totally prepared to the eventuality of sneaking out of his room under the nose of not two, but four guards, and during an emergency situation that calls for special security measures. According to Lu Han’s words, the whole castle has been alerted that Prince Chanyeol is missing. Everyone will be up and looking for him. But Baekhyun is not scared. There are secret paths only he knows, carved inside the walls, in the tall clerestories and on the old, solid girders, ladders made of plaster applications and bronze statues that he can use to walk around without being seen.

With a last glance to the closed door and a prayer to the Goddess of the Sun that the guards don’t choose this particular moment to check on him, Baekhyun climbs over the four poster bed like a mouse on a tree. On the ceilings there’s a passage that leads to a hidden floor only used by the servants, a secret Baekhyun learned from his brother. Baekhyun doesn’t normally use it because the chance of meeting someone is quite high, but he also knows no one will be around today. Not with the curfew imposed during sandstorms. The howls of the wind drown his light footsteps as he sets up to find Chanyeol.

The door to the abandoned Astronomy Tower falls open under the faintest pressure of Baekhyun’s little fingers. People are so stupid, including Lu Han. They’re looking for Chanyeol everywhere, revolting tiles and digging holes in the ground to find him, but Chanyeol is a little child playing hide-and-seek and none of the people looking for him are children, none but Baekhyun. Baekhyun is a children and he loves hide-and-seek. And if it was him, alone and lost in an unfamiliar place, wanting nothing more than to go home, sad and angry, mostly angry, with everyone, Baekhyun would do only a thing - the same thing he’s always done every time he wanted to have time for himself in a palace full of people who were looking for him. He’d go higher.

The stairs look endless from here, countless steps haunted by dark spirits and evil monsters, but Baekhyun is a future King of the Sun and he can’t be afraid of the darkness. He keeps his eyes wide open and forces himself to be brave, partly because he’s too stubborn to let his fear stop him, partly because he feels guilty for provoking Chanyeol a few hours ago. Who knows, maybe Chanyeol is afraid of the dark too, maybe he’s only waiting for someone to find him. When Baekhyun is angry, he hides and he waits, hoping that someone will find him, that someone will hug him and tell him that everything will be alright. It doesn’t always happen, but sometimes Lu Han finds him, sometimes his mother or his brother does. Sometimes it’s Han Geng, with his Oracle powers. Once, even King Heechul, but the experience and the scolding that followed are still so vividly impressed in Baekhyun’s memory that he hopes it’ll never happen again. The king is terrifying when he’s mad, especially for a five years old prince guilty of making the entire court worry about his disappearance.

All the guards in the palace had looked for him for hours, remembers Baekhyun. The memories of that day give him strength, coloring the otherwise dark walls with familiar images that dance in front of his eyes, pushing him to walk the last steps and finally push the door open.

The room hasn’t changed, but the big window from where Baekhyun had watched the implacable advance of the sand yesterday night now shows him an apocalyptic scenery. Somewhere, beyond the dome of dust, the sun has started to rise, but only a faint echo of its light can filter through the sandstorm fallen upon the city. It’s huge, like a mountain of desert furiously swirling in the skies, golden and red bleeding through the clouds of sand, giving them sanguine, gory hues. The tower bends under the force of the wind, but the spell holds everything outside, the furious demons of sand, the heat of the desert and the cries of the wind. It’s almost surreal, to see so much devastation, to almost be able to touch it, but to be unable to hear it. In the eerie silence of the room, the only thing Baekhyun can hear is the ragged, broken sound of Chanyeol’s sobs.

He hovers at the door awkwardly, feeling like he is intruding, remembering their last fight. He’s the last person Chanyeol would want to meet right now.

Baekhyun doesn’t know why he came here, when he could’ve told the guards exactly where he suspected Chanyeol to be, except… Except I told him he’ll never get rid of me and I can’t run away now.

“Who’s there?” growls Chanyeol. Baekhyun stays close to the door, hoping that the relative darkness can hide him. But dragon eyes see better in the darkness, and after a second the room is bursting with Chanyeol’s fire, not turquoise and pale like the fires the people of Syura light during sandstorms, but crimson, like the boiling belly of the mountain from where Chanyeol came.

There’s vicious hostility in Chanyeol’s eyes, an instinct to bite and burn. “What are you doing here?”

“What are you doing here?” retorts Baekhyun. “The whole castle is looking for you.”

“It’s not your business!”

“It is my business! Sandstorms are dangerous! If someone gets hurt while looking for you, I will never forgive you!”

Chanyeol gets up. He’s a short kid, with chubby cheeks and red locks. He would be pretty like an angel, if it wasn’t for his cold, cold eyes. They’re always cold, except when he’s trying to hurt Baekhyun. Only then, only for him, they turn the same alluring shade of crimson as Chanyeol’s hair.

“Get out, or I will burn you. For real.”

Baekhyun knows he will, but he will not do what Chanyeol says. “No!”

Chanyeol frowns and fire flares up around them. “Why did you have to ruin everything? Why are you so… wrong?” He doesn’t scream and that’s what hurts Baekhyun the most. “You weren’t what I was promised. You’re just a stupid kid who thinks he’s smart, but you’re so stupid!”

The fire grows, curling on the walls in vermilion vines. It reaches the window and starts licking at the spell.

“You’re stupid too,” he says, gritting his teeth. ““They told me dragons were kind and wise. And tall, and beautiful, but you’re just a whiny kid who’s scared of the sun and never gave me a chance!”

“Well, they told me I was going to marry a prince, not a dirty brat!”

Baekhyun feels his body move before Chanyeol can finish his attack. It’s like someone has pulled a trigger and Baekhyun can do nothing but watch himself moving past the flames, moving past the anger, and punching Chanyeol square in the face. Chanyeol staggers, catches the corner of a table to keep himself upright. When he looks at Baekhyun, there’s not a single flame dancing in the room. The utter, vulnerable surprise in his face extinguished them all.

“You… You hit me,” he says. There’s a hint of blood at the corner of his mouth, a tiny trail that starts from the lip Baekhyun has broken. The same blood that Baekhyun can feel on his knuckles, burning like poison. Chanyeol’s eyes are wide and black, bottomless, his face blank. From the look of it, Baekhyun can guess Chanyeol has never been hit in his life. Nor he expected Baekhyun to really punch him. Suits him, he was ready to burn me to a crisp.

He grabs the collar of Chanyeol’s vest and the other boy lets him, stays limp in his arms like a doll, still shocked. “You’re the brat, do you understand Chanyeol? You’re a spoiled brat.”

Chanyeol nods quietly, still looking at Baekhyun like he’s seeing him for the first time. Baekhyun looks around himself nervously. He has a bad feeling.

“And now let’s go back.” He screams to let himself be heard over the roar of the storm, and that’s when he realizes something is wrong. When he opened the door, the room was perfectly silent, not a single crack was heard. So why now does it feel like they’re almost out in the open?

“Baekhyun,” murmurs Chanyeol, “the window.”

He follows Chanyeol’s finger with his eyes and he finally realizes the problem. The spell is breaking, consumed by Chanyeol’s fire, pushed to its limits by the towers of sand smashing around it in the madness of the storm. It could shatter any moment now.

“Let’s go, Chanyeol let’s go!”

They both stumble towards the door, but the spell doesn’t last a second longer. They hear it break – later they will both swear it was the most ominous sound they’d ever hear in their lives – and then suddenly wind is swirling through the room, tearing both kids away from the door like an invisible, clawed hands and pulling them towards the window. Baekhyun flies, right against a wall, feeling pain irradiate from his elbow onto his whole arm. He hears Chanyeol whimper and when he opens his eyes he sees a vague, hazy image of him, holding onto the edge of the window while the wind tries to suck him towards the center of the storm.

Common sense would tell Baekhyun to crawl on the ground and finds something stable to hold to avoid being pulled away like Chanyeol, but then Chanyeol screams in fear and Baekhyun, feeling like the most stupid kid in Syura, rushes to help him.

“I have you,” he says, and he pulls. He pulls with all the strength a seven years old kid can muster. He pulls and pulls but the wind pulls stronger, pulls strong enough to pull Baekhyun too, and soon enough he will be the one holding onto the edge for his life, and Chanyeol will be lost forever. From the tears welling in Chanyeol’s eyes, the other child knows it too.

“Let me go, we’ll both fall!” squeaks Chanyeol, choking on dust, but his hand clamps tighter around Baekhyun, burning with fear, so scalding hot Baekhyun is sure he’ll be able to find dark imprints on his palm. Later, it will hurt, but right now, the pain keeps him focused. He holds onto it, lets the pain be a warning that yes, he’s still holding onto Chanyeol, the wind hasn’t won yet. The storm is stubborn, but Baekhyun is more stubborn. The King of the Sun doesn’t give up like this. “Baekhyun, let me go!”

“Hold tight, don’t let go!”

He closes his eyes, to protect them from the sand and from the sight of Chanyeol’s horrified face as Baekhyun’s grip on his hand weakens. The pain in his palm grows until it’s almost unbearable, together with Chanyeol’s panic. Then, suddenly, another hand clamps on Baekhyun’s, a pale hand with golden claws that traps both his and Chanyeol’s fingers in an iron hold and tugs, stealing them from the wind’s clutches for good. They both roll on the floor, hands still intertwined, coughing sand and crying and shaking, in front of a semi-human Lu Han. His wings, golden and shaking against the power of the wind, close around them, keeping them safe. They refuse to let go of each other even a guard ushers them out of the room. Baekhyun’s entire arm is burning, but Chanyeol’s hand is his only link with reality. He feels like he’ll disappear if he lets go. Or maybe Chanyeol will disappear, sucked inside the storm forever.

“Baekhyun, Baekhyunnie, you can let him go!”

He can barely unravel the words, but he recognizes Lu Han’s voice.

“Call a doctor immediately! And someone please inform His Majesty. And their mothers. Yes, they’re fine, they’re… Maybe it’s shock… Don’t crowd them, please, we’ll wait the arrival of the doctor.”

Baekhyun’s everything hurts. His arm is probably broken, his mouth tastes like dirt and drought and his vision is confused and red at the edges. When he tries to blink he feels the sand trapped under his eyelids scratch his orbs and for a moment he’s afraid he’ll become blind.

“Don’t worry Baekhyun, you’ll be alright, you and Chanyeol are both safe. You can let go now.”

Chanyeol’s only answer is to hide his face on Baekhyun’s neck and hug him tight, burying his sobs in Baekhyun’s hair. Baekhyun breathes, raspy and broken, an explosion of pain on his chest, and doesn’t let Chanyeol go until the end of the sandstorm.

Baekhyun sits on the edge of the balcony railing, a little prince with golden hair and golden eyes, freckles dancing on his nose like the kisses of the sun. In front of him, the world is a palette of golden and blue. The desert stretches until the horizon, all lazy dunes and treacherous sand. Above the desert, only an endless sky, the purest shade of blue, not even a cloud to taint its perfection. The sandstorm has ended.

“Don’t you want to say goodbye to him?” Sunyoung joins him on the balcony, under the shining sun. He shrugs. “I already saw him during the ceremony this morning.”

“But don’t you want to see him one last time before he leaves?”

Baekhyun thinks about Chanyeol, who slept in Baekhyun’s bed for the last three days, not wanting to let go of Baekhyun’s hand. He thinks of the fingerprint shaped burns on his wrist and palm, of the contrast between Chanyeol’s pale hand and his own. He thinks of the way Chanyeol followed him around like a lost puppy. He found out Chanyeol was almost as good as he was at sneaking away unseen and together they had explored the palace, Baekhyun leading the way and Chanyeol following eagerly. He wasn’t that bad when he wasn’t trying to roast Baekhyun’s face. Cruel, sometimes, in the innocent, fierce way only children can be cruel, but mostly shy and a bit awkward. He had clasped Baekhyun’s hand and held onto it, sometimes tight, like he was seizing a treasure, to take and to own, and sometimes kind, like he was cradling a flower, to protect it from the wind without crushing it. Sometimes it was rough, sometimes it was gentle and careful, but Chanyeol’s hand is scorching hot and if Baekhyun were a flower he would’ve already withered in his hold. But Baekhyun is not a flower, Baekhyun is a Prince of the Sun, and the princes of Syura don’t wither and don’t burn.

He grins at Sunyoung, toothy and wicked like the little brat he is.

“I don’t need to see Chanyeol one last time. I know he’ll come back, next summer. He’ll come back for me.”  
The sun has slowly started to disappear behind the dunes, turning the endless planes of golden sand into dark amber, when the dragons leave. Baekhyun stays until the caravan becomes a long trail of figures so tiny that they look like colorful toys, and he almost falls down from the balcony of the palace trying to catch one with his tiny fingers. Even from so far away, Chanyeol’s hair are the most beautiful shade of crimson.

_~ Seventh Turn of the Key ~_

****  


~~  
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**~ Epilogue ~**

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~~  


**Iesunal, Empire**

Baekhyun wakes up to ash and dust.

"Open your eyes, Baekhyun, we're home."

_~_  
But if I know you, I know what you'll do  
You'll love me at once  
The way you did once upon a dream  
~ 

**Author's Note:**

> AN: For all of you who arrived here and are wondering about a lot of things, missing details and questions I left unanswered, I am sorry. This fic was obviously meant to be bigger than it is now, but having to choose between giving it a hasty, terrible final, posting all I had but having to stop halfway through the plot and only posting the prologue, I chose the third option. I also want to thank the mods for their hard work, my checkproof readers, my beta reader who did the possible and the impossible and the supporters who didn't know what I was writing but cheered me up anyway. And last but not least, my prompter. I was so glad I got your prompt, thank you so much!
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> Mods' Notes: During the duration of BAE2016, we're kindly asking you to leave your reviews on [Livejournal](http://baeconandeggs.livejournal.com/44965.html). Thank you for reading!♥


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